|
|
Cooperative Extension Service |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
Agricultural
Experiment Station |
|
|
|
|
|
4-H Programs
Life Skills
Evaluation
Dale Bumpers College
|
|
 |
Video |
(5 minutes: 7 seconds)
Audio/Video Script:
What makes 4-H important to kids and families in Arkansas?
Blanche Lincoln: 4-H is strength, and what makes it so important is that it really provides children, or young adults, the opportunity to learn great life skills.
UALR Chancellor Joel Anderson: 4-H provides quality youth experiences.
US Senator Mark Pryor: It gives young people a chance to plug in and help other people and try to make a difference in their communities.
Blanche Lincoln: The most important thing is that they learn to interact with others. They learn how to really develop their own skills. They learn how to find the best in themselves. And then they learn how to share that with other people. I think that’s a tremendous asset in today’s world.
US Senator Mark Pryor: The numbers are something like a hundred and thirty three thousand Arkansans do 4-H right now in Arkansas and it just touches and changes a lot of lives.
What is one word that would best describe 4-H?
Blanche Lincoln: One word that I would use to describe 4-H, positive.
UALR Chancellor Joel Anderson: I probably couldn’t use just one word. I would have to use three words. I would have to say, quality-youth-experiences. I think that’s a real strong characteristic of 4-H.
US Senator Mark Pryor: What it teaches young people is that there’s more to life than just themselves. And if they really help other people and serve other people and expand their horizons, good things happen, but a big part of that is just integrity and taking care of your business the right way, dealing with people the right way, taking care of yourself the right way, and just plugging into your community and making a difference for all the right reasons.
What should parents know about 4-H?
Blanche Lincoln: I think one of the important things that parents should understand about 4-H is that it is kind of all encompassing. It’s not just a channeled idea of one sort. It allows young adults and children in today’s world to kind of develop their own skills and develop their own ideas.
UALR Chancellor Joel Anderson: The 4-H program gives young people an opportunity to network, to become acquainted with a lot of other good young people. But in addition to that, there are very committed adults that are involved in 4-H. And I know from my own personal experience growing up as a 4-H club member, that that’s a great combination.
US Senator Mark Pryor: This generation is really kind of a me, me, me generation, and it’s all about electronics, and the gizmos and the instant gratification, and all of the opportunities that people have today. And some of those are great, but that can also lead to real selfishness, so I think that 4-H has a way of getting young people to broaden their perspectives and open their eyes to other peoples’ needs and trying to find their way and how to make a difference in their communities.
What would you tell President Obama about 4-H?
Blanche Lincoln: That this is a program that is so critical to children and young adults in our great state. And it’s a program that we talk about all the things that our youth needs. Whether it’s guidance, or it’s encouragement or whether it’s empowerment. All of the difference things that we talk about. The kind of things that we’d like to share with children in after school programs. All of that is there in 4-H. If we were to provide the extension service and 4-H both the resources and the capability and the authority to really do that, it would be phenomenal nationally what it could do just watching what it does in Arkansas.
UALR Chancellor Joel Anderson: I would tell him that Arkansas 4-H is still alive and well and that it was doing great things a century ago. Just a couple of years ago, Arkansas 4-H celebrated its centennial and things are still really going well here in the state.
US Senator Mark Pryor: For a lot of people in 4-H, a lot of young people. 4-H really does become family and it really can give people purpose and it can allow them to achieve things that otherwise wouldn’t be possible. I’ve talked to a lot of adults today who said that 4-H really got them headed in the right direction. Maybe when they were younger they didn’t have any confidence, they would never speak in front of a crowd, they really didn’t think anything existed beyond their community they grew up in, but once they got in 4-H it just changed their perspective on life and just really started them in the right direction.
4-H: Go For It – Join the Fun!
Arkansas 4-H
www.kidsrus.org
U of A University of Arkansas
Division of Agriculture
|
© 2006 |
|
|
University of Arkansas • Division of Agriculture |
Mission
•
Disclaimer
•
EEO
•
|
