Here at The Meeting Place Cafe we love being involved with a number of different projects and ways of serving our community. One of those ways is through a program called Shine. Shine is designed to show young girls that they have innate worth, the strength to persevere through hard times, and that they were created with a purpose. The program was first developed by Hillsong for young girls, but since has been expanded into “Shine Women“, and “Strength” for men.
A few of our staff have been trained to facilitate these classes that run over a 9 week school term, and take time out of their schedules to speak life into these kids and be a support to them that they so desperately crave. Some of the girls have the choice to be involved in Shine, but a lot of them are recommended for the course because of difficulties at home or behavioural problems at school. So most shine classes start with the girls having a lot of insecurities, low self-esteem, and dead silence when it comes to discussion questions. However by the end of the 9 weeks the girls are more open and talkative, they have identified their dreams and they know that they have the strength to accomplish and surpass them. One young, beautiful red headed girl in my class shared with me that she hadn’t ever felt like people respected her. She deals with friends teasing her about being “ditsy” and putting down her dreams to one day own a dance studio. One day in class she came to the realization that when (not if, as she corrected herself) she finishes year 12 she will be the first person in her family to graduate high school! My other facilitators and I had to take a moment to swallow the lump in our throats and fight back the tears of joy we were feeling as we heard this sudden optimistic realization.
My class, along with 3 other Shine classes that were running in local high schools this term have just finished and we all had our graduation celebrations last week. We like to make these quite special for the girls because they go through a life changing journey and we want to take time to honour and highlight that. These are some shots from our Shine class.
A few of our staff have been trained to facilitate these classes that run over a 9 week school term, and take time out of their schedules to speak life into these kids and be a support to them that they so desperately crave. Some of the girls have the choice to be involved in Shine, but a lot of them are recommended for the course because of difficulties at home or behavioural problems at school. So most shine classes start with the girls having a lot of insecurities, low self-esteem, and dead silence when it comes to discussion questions. However by the end of the 9 weeks the girls are more open and talkative, they have identified their dreams and they know that they have the strength to accomplish and surpass them. One young, beautiful red headed girl in my class shared with me that she hadn’t ever felt like people respected her. She deals with friends teasing her about being “ditsy” and putting down her dreams to one day own a dance studio. One day in class she came to the realization that when (not if, as she corrected herself) she finishes year 12 she will be the first person in her family to graduate high school! My other facilitators and I had to take a moment to swallow the lump in our throats and fight back the tears of joy we were feeling as we heard this sudden optimistic realization.
My class, along with 3 other Shine classes that were running in local high schools this term have just finished and we all had our graduation celebrations last week. We like to make these quite special for the girls because they go through a life changing journey and we want to take time to honour and highlight that. These are some shots from our Shine class.