Young people often think that when they come to the youth center, a multi-hour program of activities planned by youth workers awaits them. However, upon arrival, it turns out that the youth center is primarily an opportunity, not an activity, and young people often need to find activities for themselves.
Although there is at least one central activity planned by youth workers every day at the youth center, such as cooking, outdoor activities, drawing, etc., this activity generally does not take up the entire opening hours of the youth center. Young people have several hours to fill as they see fit.
Young people often wander around the youth room and say they are bored; as a result, we have always directed them to the board game shelves, and sometimes they find a cure for boredom there, but sometimes even that is not enough. When young people eventually realize that the entire youth room is at their disposal, not just the board game shelf or comfortable sofas, their imagination starts to work. For example, we have built a cafe in the youth room, complete with a menu and appropriate interior; we have spontaneously made cookies from available ingredients (Cooking unites and educates | Tartu Youth Work Center); played hide-and-seek outdoors, and created a completely new game of dodgeball.
Sometimes the most interesting activity lies in doing nothing and is born out of pure boredom.
