| What does ‘ethos’ mean? All organisations, groups and indeed individual people have an ethos. It simply means the values that that organisation, group or person holds as important in conducting their business or in the case of a person in living their life. CYC has values that it thinks should be part of what we are; that best represent who we are as an agency working with young people. So what are these values? The best place to look for these values is in our mission statement. Our mission is to promote a youth work response that is caring, compassionate and Christian and enables young people to participate more fully in the life of society and church. From this mission statement you can see that our values are the following:- Caring Compassion Christian Full participation of young people What do these values mean? Caring: This is at the heart of our work. We strive to care for all young people that we come into contact with. Through caring for young people, we hope to promote the welfare of young people, help to get them out of trouble, help them have a better quality of life etc. In addition, these are not theoretical young people but young people we meet through our work in CYC, in communities and parishes in the Dublin Diocese. Compassion. Compassion is more than just sympathy. Compassion is about 'being with' the other person in their lives in a compassionate relationship. It is about understanding where the other person is coming from. Compassion involves more than doing something for the other person- it is about being with that person. But in order to be with that person, we must try to get to know that person and where he or she is coming from. So knowledge and understanding form a large part of compassion. Christian Our values are Christian – by this we mean that our values flow from the person of Jesus Christ as illustrated in the story of the Good Samaritan. We should value the same things that Jesus valued. Service to people, especially those who are the poorest and most marginalised, should be at the center of our work. We should value each and every young person that we come in contact with. This service to people should have a wider aspect too – in our commitment to justice. All our work should aim at removing injustice from our society and tackling the causes of injustice. Introducing young people to Jesus Christ is at the heart of our mission. Participation of Young people. Young people are at the core of our work. We should aim to make young people active collaborators in our work. Our work should be youth led, youth organised and carried out by young people. Our work should challenge young people to be active in society and the church. Do our values apply to only young people? No. If these are good values to have and to live by, they must apply to everyone. So in CYC, we strive to apply these values to everyone we are in contact with – not only young people, but other youth organisations, people who provide services for us, tutors, the person who services the photocopying machine and most of all our colleagues- those with whom we work with on a daily basis. ‘Individuals who care for those in need must first be professionally competent: they should be properly trained in what they do and how they do it and committed to continual care. Yet, while professional competance is a primary fundamental requirement, it is of itself not sufficient. We are dealing with human beings, and human beings always need something more than technical proper care. They need humanity. They need heartful concern. Those who work for the Church’s charitable organisations must be distinguished by the fact that they do not merely meet the needs of the moment, but they dedicate themselves to others with heartfelt concern, enabling them to experience the richness of their humanity.’
Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est 2006 |