{"id":1145,"date":"2008-09-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-30T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bahai.org.au\/index.php\/news\/youth-will-lead-us-to-a-global-society\/"},"modified":"2017-10-14T04:53:48","modified_gmt":"2017-10-14T04:53:48","slug":"youth-will-lead-us-to-a-global-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bahai.org.au\/index.php\/youth-will-lead-us-to-a-global-society\/","title":{"rendered":"Youth will 'lead us to a global society'"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Youth
Lisa and Vivek Williams at the Baha’i House of Worship in Sydney<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today\u2019s youth will take the world beyond nationhood to greater models of unity and global cooperation, a former principal of a Baha’i-inspired international school told an International Day of Peace reception on 21 September.<\/p>\n

\u201cParents want their children to be like them, but I tell them not to have such low expectations,\u201d said Vivek Williams, who has recently returned to Australia after six years as a teacher and principal of the Townshend International School in the Czech Republic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t strive to make our children just like us, because the world has evolved and needs new capacities that only our youth can offer,\u201d said Mr Williams, who was speaking at the National Baha’i Centre.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s youth people will take the world forward and we should have faith and confidence in them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can be very optimistic about the future and the generation that will take us there.\u201d<\/p>\n

60 countries<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr Williams said Townshend has attracted students from more than 60 countries from Europe through to the Pacific.<\/p>\n

Its philosophy is based on the Baha’i view that the role of education is to release the potentialities latent in every human being, he said.<\/p>\n

The school did not separate academic education from the development of good character.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone who attains academic excellence but has no moral values can cause much harm in the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if you have both, the result is light upon light.\u201d<\/p>\n

Learning to serve<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr Williams said that the school instils the value of serving others through the expectation that students participate in some form of community service every week.<\/p>\n

This could involve mentoring younger students, assisting the disabled, or volunteering at an old people\u2019s home.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you enable young people to serve others, it resonates with their spiritual core and enables them to develop and transform themselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Examples<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lisa Williams, who taught at Townshend for six years alongside her husband, spoke about some of the students she had taught.<\/p>\n

One was a 14-year-old Roma girl who entered the school without any knowledge of English, its main language of instruction.<\/p>\n

She has now graduated with honours and is studying law so that she can help her people, who face discrimination and prejudice in many parts of Europe.<\/p>\n

Another student arrived at the school from inner city London, where he had seldom attended school in the previous three years, Mrs Williams said.<\/p>\n

Following his graduation, he served as a volunteer at an orphanage in Honduras, and raised funds to enable two of the orphans to study at Townshend.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is now studying media in England, and his main interest is serving others,\u201d said Mrs Williams.<\/p>\n

The presentation by Mr and Mrs Williams was followed by a service in the Baha’i House of Worship to mark the International Day of Peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s youth will take the world beyond nationhood to greater models of unity and global cooperation, a former principal of a Baha’i-inspired international school told an International Day of Peace reception on 21 September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-releases","category-uncategorised"],"yoast_head":"\nYouth will &apos;lead us to a global society&apos; - Australian Baha'i Community<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bahai.org.au\/index.php\/youth-will-lead-us-to-a-global-society\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Youth will &apos;lead us to a global society&apos; - 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