The French Connection at JLGB Leadership Weekend

20 Jewish teenagers from Paris, France, joined over 60 JLGB members from across the UK for their accredited leadership development weekend.  The French group spent the week touring London, with help from the JLGB staff, before surprising the young JLGB members by arriving at the training centre in Bushey, Herts.  
Jo Zinger, Training coordinator for the weekend, said: “At every training weekend, we set one of our groups a challenge to plan and organise a whole evening of activities.  Every year we put a new twist to make it more difficult and this year we told them to   imagine that a group of Jewish young people from France would be joining us.   They had to think about what factors they would have to take into account to ensure maximum integration and participation and enjoyment– when 20 French teens turned up for real, everyone was stunned, but when the shock died down, they then put on for real their amazingly planned evening – which everyone loved!"
The JLGB helps young people to develop skills that they’ll be able to use throughout their lives – skills such as character building, leadership, self-confidence and a sense of duty and responsibility. JLGB Leadership Training and Skills development, which are accredited by the National Open College Network (NOCN), cover a vast range of transferable life skills, all of which are vital for young people’s further education and future career opportunities.  JLGB Accredited Modules include: 
• Personal development and social awareness • Peer leadership, teamwork and communication • Activity organisation, event planning and risk assessment • Situation management, safeguarding and child protection • Money management and informed decision making • Jewish identity, heritage and peoplehood • Citizenship, social action and intergenerational programming • Motivational techniques and presentation skills
By linking its training with NOCN, the JLGB was the first Jewish voluntary youth organisation to offer nationally accredited training qualifications to young Jewish people, not just through the JLGB, but through school, charities, synagogues and youth movements. In today’s highly competitive world, these transferable skills offered by the JLGB to hundreds of Jewish young people are an excellent addition to a young person’s CV or UCAS form.  Participants on the weekend came from all across the country with participants from Bushey, Radlett Redbridge, Glasgow, Liverpool, Kingston, Ilford, Brighton, Manchester, Cardiff, Leeds and Edgware.  This is one of many events where the National JLGB family all get together with the participants making new friends as well as re-acquainting with old ones.
Antony Grace, JLGB Programmes Manager, said: “Everyone got on really well and made friends instantly and our members love that the JLGB is becoming ever more international.  We have been working hard to connect our Jewish youth in the UK with Jewish people of a similar age in Israel, Europe and America through positive activity, personal development and discussion. We aim to help engender a modern understanding and appreciation of what it means to be Jewish, not only from their individual perspective but also from those that they encounter from a wide variety of social, economic and cultural backgrounds. We hope our new found French connection, will see a French group attend JLGB Summer Camp in August 2012.”
Another 60 new JLGB participants will take part in the JLGB unique accredited training provision in January and those aged 14-16 should get in touch with JLGB if they would like to also take up this opportunity.
For more information about JLGB, visit www.jlgb.org, email getinvolved@jlgb.org or telephone 020 8989 8990.