...we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

These words from the inaugural speech of Barak Hussein Obama, the 44th President of the United States of America sum up for me two aspects of the work of Public Achievement.

Firstly, it is a reminder that the work we do together with young people is real, and often difficult and challenging.  It is about important and sometimes complex issues, and it is about changing the culture of local communities and dealing with the legacy of our still recent violent conflict.  One of the things that attracted me to Public Achievement as a model, is that it is driven by a commitment to real work around real world issues.  All too often, work with young people is tokenistic, maybe even bogus.  Work masquerading as 'participation' is often about adults trying to get young people to commit to adult agendas and panics, rather than genuine attempts to co-invent with young people, new ways of addressing common concerns.

The second aspect is about the challenges of doing and continuing the work.  Resourcing Public Achievement has never been easy.  Our model stubbornly refuses to fit in the neat boxes preferred by many funders.  It is underwritten by a commitment to integrity, that can disadvantage us in a funding environment that often lacks this integrity.  It is difficult to ask people to continually and unrelentingly commit to this challenge - this is the price of citizenship as service.  The promise lies in the many moments where people (young and otherwise) overcome their own expectations of who they can be - and the expectations that others have of them.  It also lies in the lessons people take from our work and apply to other areas of their lives and the problems and challenges they face.  It is in the legacy of our work - largely unknown and unmeasurable.

At a point in our collective history where the world has shifted and changed in ways we cannot begin to imagine it is inspiring to work with an organisation and pedagogy that is committed to addressing difficult tasks and building hope and promise for our collective future.  My thoughts have been with our colleagues in Gaza, the West Bank and in Israel these last terrible weeks.  In particular, our colleague Amal Sabawi, who leads the Quaker Youth Programmes in Gaza.  To be able to engage with young people about concepts like democracy, and to attempt to instill a commitment to nonviolence in such a terrible set of circumstances is truly remarkable.  Her work is every bit as much an inspiration as the remarkable day that has unfolded in Washington, DC.