Key Leader shapes teens in South America

Emotions are a universal language. Consider Key Leader’s most recent event set outside North America: Though the event was conducted in Spanish and then converted to Portuguese, nothing was lost in translation to the 50 Brazilian teenagers who attended the first Key Leader event in Campinas, Brazil.

As two Key Leader participants mug, their smiles translate the message that they are having fun while they learn about leadership.

Who are your town's next leaders? Kiwanis clubs are encouraged to identify teenagers who would benefit from attending a Key Leader event and to assist financially with their Key Leader costs. The Key Leader Web site lists 2007 event dates and locations, and offers an online registration form.

Brazilian Key Leader participants work out a leadership exercise.

Brazilian teenagers describe their drawing depicting ideal leadership.

The event’s program and materials matched those of Key Leader events in the United States and Canada. The biggest difference, says Key Leader program specialist Erin Fischer, who attended the event, was at its conclusion.

“At the end of Key Leader events in North America, the teenagers are ready to switch gears, focus back on homework and what’s coming up in school for the week,” Fischer says. “But in Brazil, they simply didn’t want it to be ‘over.’ They wanted to think more about the future, and they even stayed to help clean up and ended up staging a Catholic mass.

“One of the event’s adult facilitators said, ‘We don’t speak the same language, but our hearts have the same emotions, the same words. And we all share a concern for teenagers in the world.’”

That common concern for teenagers, coupled with Key Club connections—and a joint venture with the (US) Department of State—is what brought Key Leader to Brazil in the first place.

The State Department’s bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) routinely works with US-based nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) on youth drug prevention initiatives abroad. One of its initiatives abroad has been through the Brazilian organization Teen Christian Leadership (TCL).

“Working with Kiwanis International was a natural fit due to Kiwanis’ lengthy experience in providing US-based leadership training,” says Jim Core, program analyst at the Department of State. Jim was a key to opening the door—financial and logistical—to Key Leader in Brazil.

“The mission of the State Department is to help create a more secure, democratic, and prosperous world. Kiwanis’ (Service Leadership Programs) strengthen communities and countries around the world,” he says.

Jim should know: He is a former Key Clubber (Trustee), Key Club area administrator, and Kiwanian.

“The skills I developed as a Key Club leader helped me succeed in high school and beyond,” he says. “Youth worldwide can apply the Key Leader lessons in personal, organizational, and community development.

“Brazil was a natural starting point for the State/INL relationship with Kiwanis, because of INL’s already established relationship with youth leaders in the drug prevention field there. This is a classic example of how public-private partnerships should work. Kiwanis is a world leader in delivering youth leadership programs.”

Jim adds that the joint effort with Kiwanis is especially beneficial to the State Department because it allowed the State Department to align quickly and cost-effectively with Kiwanis’ “world-class expertise in youth development” and existing Key Leader curriculum that already was delivered and tested in multicultural interfaith environments.

But the relationship is also good for Kiwanis.

“Brazil currently has only one Kiwanis club,” says Key Leader manager Dick Peterson. “So bringing Key Leader to that nation has a two-fold impact: teaching Brazil’s teens about service leadership and introducing more of the nation to Kiwanis.”