Connecting with youths

TAFFIE Tamba, a young Zimbabwean with YWAM Ships, is enjoying every minute of her time in Papua New Guinea connecting with rural youths in the country.
Her love for PNG has grown over the last five years, reminding her so much of her own country and all she wants now is to give the best she can to serve youths.
“When I first came (to PNG), it reminded me of home, but my heart wept when I go to the villages,” Tamba said.
“When we were in the village, there were these young people who had passion and dreams and there was no one to turn to.
“And how can we equip them?
“They needed someone to believe in them and help them make some of those dreams come alive,” Tamba said
Last Thursday, Tamba and her youthful local team members arrived in Kopkop College to participate with 22 grade 11 and 12 students in a fun and educational seminar.
Recently, settling into a youth office in Vabukori, the team’s initiative was to engage with schools to run youth seminars that focused on passion, purpose and perseverance.
“In these youth seminars, we found that young people had a lot of passions, but there was no direction and no purpose where they were going,” Tamba said.
“We all know that in life, there are things that come along the way, stumbling blocks that stop us from pursuing our goals.
“Our heart is that we must go into those high schools and engage with the grade 11 and 12 students because they are the future of the country.
“In engaging with them, we want them to be confident with their passion and purpose.
“We also want them to be able to remain sustainable.”
She said Kopkop College was one of those first schools to have responded to YWAM’s youth seminar programme.
“Kopkop College is a very beautiful school,” she said.
“One of the things is that, the young people are so polite and they greet you and make sure you know where you are going.
“It has just been a pleasant surprise.”
Secondary school principal Roddy Abbady said they were delighted by the visit knowing that such seminars allowed students to explore and learn from activities, other than being restricted in classroom learning only.
The session, last Thursday, allowed students to discuss about their passion, played team-building games followed with discussions on what they learnt from the session, which also involved songs and dance presentations.