Blog: Changing the world one child at a time
By Mike Proctor, 14 November 2011
Creativity can be crushed by teachers, parents and critics . “You’re not smart enough” or “Do something else with your life”, they will say. It’s sad because some of the brightest and talented minds never reach their full potential because their creativity is not given the chance to shine. The truth is that everyone is talented, everyone is original and everyone has something to say if they are given the confidence and opportunity to say it. My job is to inspire young minds and let their creativity bloom! I use the term “job” loosely; its more like my personal mission for change – to change the imbalance of society, to change the negative portrayal of young people in the media and to change myself into the person I want to be. I want to be a leader, a martyr, a hero and somebody I can be proud of. City Year is the first step of my transformation into the person I was born to be.
I have found being part of the National Grid team to be tough at times; we have a diverse range of strong personalities which sometimes conflict and make agreeing on things difficult. However, I would not want to be on any other team because they are a bunch of truly electrifying people (as you would expect from the National Grid Team). They always make me laugh and I know I can rely on them in any situation. We also have the most hard-working, dedicated, inspirational team leader in the world who helped me out a couple of weeks ago by contributing to the Mike Procter charity fund when I had absolutely no money after losing my card. It helps me sleep at night knowing I have a team leader who won’t let me die of starvation!
It takes a lot of mental toughness to overcome the challenges placed in front of you on a day-to-day basis as part of this experience. You have to prevail against exhaustion; getting up early every single day and dragging yourself to school even though your body is crying out for more sleep. You have to survive public transport and school dinners! You have to do all this while still being able to inspire,excite and motivate swarms of energetic children that make you want to scream half the time! However, when you see that imaginary light-bulb flash above a child’s head as they finally learn something they’ve been struggling to comprehend for weeks, it makes all the early morning coffee runs and bad hair days worthwhile. I’ve been helping a year 6 boy who is way below the expected level for his age to enhance his overall reading ability. The improvement he’s made over the time I’ve been working with him has been tremendous and I am so proud of him! Without City Year he wouldn’t get the attention he needs. City Year allows children like him to get the chance of a better future, and that’s a beautiful thing.
The corp members are what make this organisation so special though. Every single person here is passionate about making a real difference in society. Every person is warm, friendly and would never turn anyone anyway that turned to them for help. I have felt more love and received more compliments in the last few months than I have done in my entire life! I keep getting appreciations I don’t deserve from corps members and I don’t understand it but it makes me feel really humbled and good about myself, and that’s why I think City Year is so amazing. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done in the past, the way you look, what religion you are. People accept you and they not only accept you but they make you feel like you belong and can do anything. We are one big, happy, red family changing the world one child at a time.
