"Dining for Women AND Children: Or how we survive meetings with 10 to 20 children included!”
By: Denise Woods, MS MA
I was all set on having a “normal” chapter, women dining for women and children, when some of my friends said, “why not include children? It would be a way to model what we want in the world, empowering children for change” Once I got over my fantasies of calm, white wine enhanced deep discussions about change, and had checked with my co-leader, we decided to break the mold and include children in our chapter meetings.
What does this mean? Well, we have small group of truly committed and amazing women AND about 10 to 20 children, from a few months to 10 years, when we meet. The meetings rarely start or end on time, there are constant interruptions for spills and needs (not mine for once); and, finally and more importantly, the older children are seeing other people their size doing presentations about the world, and learning that they also can do something that will ever so softly shift the seismic plate of poverty! My daughter along with other youth has led a quiz show on Peru, participated in interactive demonstrations of what micro –finance looks like in Nepal, and demonstrated what a vocational student might learn in Ghana.
We keep it wild and crazy aka highly interactive, based on adult learning principals, so that the older kids (and adults) don’t fall asleep and they may even learn something. A child is always paired with the parent for a parent/child presentation in hopes that this relationship will benefit them both and intergenerational learning takes place. We usually learn more from them.
Do I worry that my children may find out something that may be stressful and beyond their development stage, yes a little, however, what I more worry about is that they will grow up lives of US privilege ensconced in their middle class bubble and not realizing that most of world can only dream of what they have. And that what we don’t blink on spending for a piece of fruit is what most of the world’s population lives on in a day. But, mostly I want are children who have discovered through DFW (or as some of us like to call us Dining, Drinking and Donating) that they have become compassionate and empathetic global citizens. Has it been easy, no; has it been worth it, absolutely!
