THE MOVEMENT

How We Work

While much of the world seeks to promote development through micro-loans or high dollar social programs, our belief is that the future of each country can best be changed by changing the hearts, minds and behaviors of our youth. Youth are more moldable and more eager to learn to do things the right way.

Our belief is that well-developed young people and families will go on to transform their neighborhoods, beginning a grassroots movement that will then transform their city. In order to see this happen, we walk into the streets, into slums, into schools, churches, houses and community centers. We walk in and begin building friendships that lead to mentoring relationships and then to forming small group communities. We also work to equip these families, churches, schools and centers to better equip the young people they are responsible for. Finally, we walk into government offices and ask them to be a part of the solution rather than part of the problem for the young people in their country.

In the end, our vision is for a movement to begin. Young people, their families, community leaders, teachers, pastors, priests and government officials begin to walk together in seeing neighborhood after neighborhood filled with small group communities and mentoring. As these groups and mentoring relationships spread across the city, the nation is transformed.

Theory of Change

Boy With a Ball is based on a theory of change, which includes the following four elements:

  • Aggressive Outreach
     This is where we form highly-skilled teams capable of walking out into where young people are in order to get to know them and establish a relationship with them. These regular times of walking out into young people and their families' neighborhoods allow these relationships to be deepened over time.
  • One-to-one Mentoring
     As these relationships are deepened, Boy With a Ball team members look for openings and opportunities to invite individuals into mentoring relationships. These relationships involve regular either formal or informal meetings where the young person can be cared for and equipped
  • Small Group Communities
     Alongside these mentoring relationships, young people and their families are also invited into regular small group meetings where they can share their hearts and be equipped. It is our belief that mentoring alone without this involvement in a small group can be almost counter-productive. The accountability and power of being around other young leaders and to be invited into supporting one another in their process is both encouraging and provoking and allows for deeper levels of equipping.
  • Equipping/Education
     From these mentoring relationships and small group communities, individuals are equipped not only to overcome their own issues and life situations but then to go further and to be able to turn and equip others.

This is the dramatic power within Boy With a Ball teams in that they begin a grassroots movement of young leaders spreading across a city, developing more mentoring relationships and small group communities and equipping other young people and families until the city has been transformed.