by Steve Owad

Jacek Jakubowski does nothing by rote. He takes pains, in fact, to point out that he does almost nothing at all. The Polish psychologist and self-confessed "ex-rebel" employs no support staff, does no advertising, and sells no product or service, yet he directs an enterprise that reaches every corner of Poland and has an expanding army of supporters to champion his cause.

His phantom venture is the Universal Youth Academy (Powsechnej Akademii Mlodziezy, or PAM), a five-year-old organization that "activates" youths rather than directing them. While more traditional youth groups provide members with tasks or problems to solve, PAM's 16- to 20-year-old members choose and devise their own projects, seek their own financing and outside cooperation (from adult-run organizations), and carry out their initiatives themselves. PAM provides only preparatory workshops and networking support – no money and no concrete agenda.

The results so far: dozens of projects ranging from art exhibitions to environmental initiatives, as well as a creeping sea change in youth's role in society. Jakubowski's methodology fastens on the belief that society must give youths less guidance and direction and better preparation to unleash their raw creativity.

"We can no longer tell youths what to do," says Jakubowski. "We can only tell them how to do the things they are doing."

Such thinking has informed his every move since he created PAM in 1993. At the time, Poland was four years into a capitalism that had created mass unemployment and hyperinflation virtually overnight. With most Poles conditioned to expect economic and social problem-solving to be handed down from above, and with a cash-strapped government canceling social and educational programs, much of the population felt lost in a new system that demanded self-sufficiency.

An Ounce of Life Is Worth a Pound of Prevention

The problem still exists. "Schools provide trained helplessness," Jakubowski says, "and government programs focus on things like unemployment prevention. I don't want to teach prevention. I want to teach life." To that end, in 1993 he persuaded fellow psychologists at the Polish Psychological Association to volunteer some time. He also convinced the association itself (he is a vice president) to provide training facilities free. His plan – to unleash youth creativity – was the culmination of 20 years' experience in devising the association's drug addiction and unemployment programs while running its psychologist training school.

Association psychologists' visits to schools and youth groups throughout Poland attracted the initial core of youths to take part in a three-tier system that Jakubowski developed. In the first stage, volunteer psychologists ("facilitators," in the PAM lingo) run workshops and group self-examination exercises to build self-knowledge and self-confidence; then, through a series of team-building exercises, the youths harvest their organizational and administrative abilities; and finally, once members are mature enough, they brainstorm, choose an initiative that they hope will change their community. For the adult facilitators, there is no list of acceptable or unacceptable initiatives; the only boundary is feasibility, and the only (unwritten) rule is to develop yourself, but to try to do something for others while you are at it.

Lots of Talk – and Action

"Our adult facilitators are there only to clip some wings," Jakubowski says. "A project to clean up the Vistula River [Poland's largest river] would be too big. It wouldn't make sense."

But talking a good project is easy. Moving from concept to action calls for more concrete steps. This is where Jakubowski's networking wherewithal comes in. Often a group devises a project, then cannot find the money or organizational assistance they need to implement it. Jakubowski can steer groups toward government offices and agencies, non-governmental bodies, and even a private company or two. If the obvious leads bear no fruit, there is a loosely affiliated but growing network of PAM members throughout the country, all of them with names, addresses and information on who has what in their area. They strive to build the network even though they ultimately work outside of PAM (the PAM news bulletin is published by an outside organization, and Jakubowski found no need even to register as a non-profit organization until 1995).

"The good thing about PAM," says Kasia Juncewicz, an 18-year-old member in Lodz, "is its lack of structure. It's not an institution, and it has no ideology. All it does is connect people."

Which is important, given that independent clubs and organizations tend to compete for funding and attention. With these groups loosely connected by PAM, camaraderie and networking support take the place of rivalry. In the early years, Jakubowski himself was the sole connector. Now, with PAMers and volunteer facilitators nationwide, his role is slowly waning, which is precisely what he wants. "I would like PAM to operate on its own," he says, "but it's still at a stage where it needs my contacts."

The Conductor and His Energetic Orchestra

Jakubowski still has no deputy or assistant to take over his work should he leave. What he does have is strong but loosely coordinated support from members of the Polish Psychological Association, many of whom, in Jakubowski's words, "donate their time and then go home." As for the youths, PAM now has 300 formal members and several thousand informal members. Apart from age, the main thing uniting them is energy.

Joining PAM is purely a matter of choice (not something that earns extra credits at school, for instance), and PAMers' initiatives reflect youthful ambition. The favorite undertakings tend to be cultural events like anti-alcohol concerts and art festivals, but projects take many different forms. Some groups run charitable projects such as outreach programs for cancer patients. Others raise enough capital to start their own businesses. None of them formally "graduate" from PAM; instead, they leave when school or the job market calls, taking with them valuable experience in teamwork and pro-active problem solving.

But while they are in PAM, they change things. One group, in the small town of Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, brought origami lessons into local elementary schools, marking the first time that local teachers worked together with youths in the classroom. The project signaled a departure from the traditional model of active teachers feeding passive students information. It also highlighted one of PAM's overriding goals: to break the traditional barriers between society's various groups. Seventeen-year-old Lukasz Krawetkowski took part in the project. "Our main goal was to try to integrate [with the teachers]," he says. "After we did some of that, the adults actually started to come to us with ideas for future projects."

In Chelm, Tomasz Borowka found PAM to be a useful ad hoc tool. He heard about PAM only after securing government agency funds to organize concerts for local youths. He and friends then went through the three-tier workshop process, met other PAMers, and turned their small Youth Counsel for Cultural Development into a broader venture that now produces a local television program on youth issues and runs summer camps for children. Again, PAM's networking made a difference.

The Zen of Networking

"It also helped us use our energy more constructively," Borowka says "After the workshops, we knew how to organize things."

Ambitious joiners aside, how do youths find their way to PAM? "We used to advertise," Jakubowski says, "but the advertisements attracted people who needed help, not those who had something to give."

PAM relies instead on word of mouth and on the facilitators' visiting workshops. Students encouraged by a workshop's group exercises can attend a future workshop, then start PAM's self-examination phase. Members use an "epidemic" metaphor to describe how the organization grows: rather than actively recruiting new members, they presuppose that the PAM message of activity and creativity has an intrinsic ability to infect.

So far they seem to be right. Governmental and non-governmental projects come and go, ending when funding dries up or the task is complete. PAM, meanwhile, continues to expand and to forge stronger links among its members throughout Poland.

There are hindrances, though. Poland still has few non-governmental agencies, which are favorite targets for groups' queries for cooperation. Also, Jakubowski has strong ties with various ministries and local government offices, but the nascent private sector, like the NGOs, is hard to tap for cooperation.

On a deeper level, adults often mistrust teenagers initiatives. "People think PAM-spawned projects are the government's job," says Jakubowski, who created the Polish Psychological Association's (and Poland's) first program to deal with youth subcultures. "Many also think youths should be either with the family or with a Church organization."

Round Pegs, Sometimes Comfortable in Square Holes

In the southern industrial town of Belchatow, he adds, it took local parents and teachers years to accept their children's involvement with an organization that, in effect, was helping them find their first jobs. Old habits of enforced passivity among young people are dying hard.

Jakubowski also notes the difficulty in organizing under one umbrella. With PAM groups spread throughout Poland, devising and carrying out projects under various governmental, NGO and private auspices, cohesiveness is hard to attain. Development, whether nationally or internationally, currently depends almost solely upon Jakubowski's unifying influence. More volunteers are needed on the organizational side, because without Jakubowski, PAM groups nationally could revert to competing for funds and support, or could simply stop communicating with each other, as no other Polish organization follows the PAM networking modus operandi. The "epidemic" alone is not enough to ensure growth; integrative leadership is essential.

Despite the challenges, PAM is determined to flourish, with Jakubowski working on funding agreements with the Ministry of Education and 30 other institutions, and with PAM working on a formal qualifications program for (volunteer) facilitators and professionals in Poland. A four-level training system will give the psychologist-facilitators, as well those who train them, a solid methodological foundation for working with groups. To reach the program's top echelon, a psychologist will need two years at the association's training school as well as five to six years of professional experience. The program will give PAM a more institutional profile and make it less dependent on Jakubowski alone.

The goal in all of this is to support young Poles in their move from passive observers to active, engaged members of society. For Jakubowski, who evolved from "younger years and longer hair" to become a renowned psychologist, it is an obvious objective.