Different Encounters: A Grassroots Education Program

Different Encounters (DE) started as a conversation between two friends playing weekend basketball in the neighborhood of Jackson Heights in New York City, New York.  What started as a simple dialogue around helping a few youth learn the skills of shooting, dribbling and passing has now unfolded into a wonderful design to educate adolescent youth in areas that will allow them to be successful throughout adolescence and into adulthood. 

The integration of physical, health and character education will hopefully establish a sense of purpose and value in the young people who experience the program.  At DE, we want to provide the young people an experience that will help guide them in making decisions and choices as well as expose them to a ‘different’ mindset, a mindset that emerges through in-depth conversation and dialogue with the program staff members.  The DE staff members bring a diverse, different viewpoint to the program but are similar to the participants in that everyone shares a love for the game of basketball.  This singular connection allows a mutual respect in which staff and participants can learn from each other while also gaining mutually beneficial rewards in the process. 

The rewards for the young people are improved self-confidence, greater self-awareness, increased physical activity and structured opportunities to learn new information, meet new people and to have fun playing a game that they love.  For the program staff, the rewards are realized in knowing that they have given back a portion of their time in helping a young person learn valued lessons that will lead to making better informed decisions, which ultimately could result in the improvement of society on a number of measures. 

Though still in its infancy, DE realizes its usefulness in spreading love among the members of humanity, regardless of age, through a common interest and passion, which in this case happens to be a bright orange ball.  DE endeavors to develop a model that can be reproduced the globe over to inspire people to be active, engaged and good-hearted.