Connexions Life is forever under construction. Hard hat and safety glasses required.
What's New: Blog: New Way Forward. Creating Change, on Facebook.
Can we create a better world for ourselves and others?
Those in the age groups 18 to 35* are the people most likely to make positive change. This is what this Website and movement are about.
This website may contain resources.
I/we invite you to join the discussion. New Way Forward. Creating Change, on Facebook.
New generations have many issues to resolve:
The Biggest Problems Gen Z Faced in 2023—According to Them
SOCIAL ISSUES THAT MATTER TO GENERATION ZAssist by providing resources, in building a supportive community of new generations age 15 to 39, emphasizing connections with others, life skills, and spirituality. Be intensely engaging.
This Website tries to reflect the values of new generations. Above all they expect people to be genuine. Values include respect and equality for all others, understanding, support, acceptance of others, diversity and pluralism, compassion-kindness* to others, emphasizing connections and individual growth. Help people survive and flourish. Be intensely engaging, useful, and empowering.
* compassion-kindness and support to others meaning to want the best for others and a willingness to help them achieve it.
* Respect and equality for all others, acceptance of others, diversity, and pluralism refer to race, national origin, religion, relgious beliefs, ethnicity, gender identity, education, career or job, lifestyle, and other ways peope are regarded as "less than others" and discrimated against.
WHAT ARE THE CORE CHARACTERISTICS OF GENERATION Z?
New generations are a living movement, driven by members, that grows, and enables necessary change. It's not held back by tradition, is ever responsive to the changing needs of individuals and society, and with a heart for social justice and advocacy. Highly collaborative, not authoritarian (grass roots, not top down). Open minded with high ideals. Changemakers.
*Living in the sense that it changes and grows with society and member needs.
Site host: Dorian Scott Cole
This website is not the movement. The website host, Dorian, tries to reflect and empower, not direct. He is very much inline with their attitudes and goals.
The movement is composed of late Millennials (1990s), Generation Z (1997-2012), Generation Alpha (2013-2025), and many others who desire positive, constructive changes in our society.
High profile leaders of this movement include David Hogg on gun control, Greta Thunberg on climate mitigation, and Malala Yousafzai, a female education activist. Meet Sixteen Generation Z Leaders Who Are Making an Impact.
Movements and groups flourish with proper leadership. Leaders have to be in tune with the values and needs of the members, who are new generations. Effective leaders have people skills, education, and experience.
Success in leadership is partly about building relationships. An open mind, and being non-critical, accepting, honest, and flexible; these are essential to building trust, which is paramount to success. Community relations and PR are often part of leadership. Success often depends on personality and the ability to relate.
Recommendations for leaders include those who support the goals, and have taken courses and can teach in leadership, building organizations and movements, marriage, psychology, sociology, conflict resolution, and spiritual mentoring, while demonstrating leadership qualities. Appropriate courses will be used for training front-line workers and leaders. Education is essential to successfully working with people.
Assistant leader recommendations: Those who support the goals and want to be part of the leadership, and who are working toward completing leadership courses.
Leadership organization recommendations: Leadership shouldn’t be learned and experienced in a vacuum. Regular meetings, mentor relationships, and mechanisms for getting advice need to be established.
New Way Forward. Creating Change, on Facebook. Understand problems that negatively affect too many people, find solutions, and create change.
Zero Hour - Join or support Zero Hour and amplify the voices of youth organizing for climate action
Peoples Hub. Resistance, Resilience, Restoration, Re-imagination. Online Popular Education. For movement workers to learn, connect, collaborate, and strategize - in and across the disability justice and solidarity economy movements.
Fetzer Institute. "We encourage each other to discover new ways of knowing our sacred world and explore our personal spiritual journeys as we work toward transformed communities and societies in which all people can flourish."
How to Form Connections and Make Friends. Meetup Group online.
Spirit inSight Seekers and Sharing Meetup Group online.
Stakeholder Capitalism - a video podcast series from the World Economic Forum. Can capitalism be made to work for all of us - and to improve rather than destroy the state of the planet?
An Intentional Life: Five Foundations of Authenticity & Purpose.
Springtide Research Institute. Delivers accessible social-scientific research on the newest generations. (Dorian is a Founding financial sponsor.)
For those who work with new generations and feel lost, I developed and presented a course on understanding and working with them. On a scale of 1 to 5 it averaged 4.5. Some of the people were raving. The course helps people understand new generations, their values, and their differences. It helps people understand how to build a bridge to them and minister to them.
Course on Udemy: Understanding and Working with New Generations
Three training courses are currently in development. Coupons for substantial discounts will be avilable to those who register with this site to receive information about additional courses. Courses will be available on Udemy.com:
Dorian is experienced in developing and presenting highly effective training courses for groups. He has excelled in being a communicator, leader, and change maker in many environments.
Courses may be developed by any qualified person and presented through this site. They may be free or charged for. They will have to meet training standards. Gameful Learning and timed reinforcement are highly recommended. A video demonstrating the course is invaluable. Udemy recommends a minimum of 2 hours of video for each course.
Types of activities for providing high quality life skills, opportunities, assistance, social engagement, and life enhancement - planned training courses are:
World Health organization: World Health Organization has defined life skills as, "the abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life". Module 7 Life Skills Unicef: Life skills are defined as “a group of psychosocial competencies and interpersonal skills that help people make informed decisions, solve problems, think critically and creatively, communicate effectively, build healthy relationships, empathize with others, and cope with and manage their lives in a healthy and productive manner.
Wikipedia: Life skills are abilities for adaptive and positive behavior that enable humans to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of life. This concept is also termed as psychosocial competency. The subject varies greatly depending on social norms and community expectations but skills that function for well-being and aid individuals to develop into active and productive members of their communities are considered as life skills. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_skills
Life skills can be categorized into three main groups:
Interpersonal skills are used to interact and communicate with others. They include traits like:
Self-confidence, Critical thinking, Active listening, Communication skills, Delegation, Leadership. Some other life skills include: Self-belief, Self-management, Teamwork, Social skills, Emotional skills.
Surveys show that New Adults are lonely. They don’t make friends easily, and have few ways to meet and make friends.
From Springtide Research:
“What I have noticed in my work with students is that many of them face the same hidden root challenge: loneliness ... I never got the question in my first five years at USC that I now get almost daily from students: “How do I make friends?” Students may have thousands of friends online, but few in real life …”
“Campfires are conversations that USC describes as groups of two or three or larger where participants begin by surrendering laptops and phones to the center of the gathering and then watching a video, followed by a period of asking one another questions.
“The questions are intended “to move people from acquaintance into deeper connection with each other,” according to the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life website. Clear guidelines for asking and responding to questions are provided, and student leaders are trained in the “‘arts of Campfires’ in order to make their campus organizations more conducive to the formation of meaningful relationships among their members.”
the Facebook page: New Way Forward. acts as a blog.
Individuals can contact Dorian through the Facebook page: New Way Forward. Spam will be ignored.
Dorian Scott Cole is a former pastor of a mainline denomination who currently is an author with an online publishing ministry. He develops courses for training or seminars in industry and religion, as well as nonfiction and fiction books. His publishing focus is new generations, and spirituality.
With formal education and experience in several fields, including religion, technology, psychology, management, and movie production, he is cross-disciplinary in approach. He likes variety, creativity, and helping people develop.
In course development, organizational settings, and writing, he uses social psychology to understand people, organizational problems, and helps them bring change. Attitude change is often essential.
As a peacemaker, he tries to bring different parties together to work together to heal or resolve organizational and societal problems.
He is ecumenical and works with other denominations in public efforts such as the Catholic Engaged Encounter, courses on understanding new generations, and is accepting of other religions.
He has been happily married to his wife for so long he doesn’t need to count the years, even though she says he does, and they boast three adult children and their grandchildren and many pets.
I/we invite you to join the discussion. New Way Forward. Creating Change, on Facebook.
New Generations Explore Faith on Patheos
Podcast Our Times Today and Tomorrow, the quest for spirituality on Substack.
New Generations Explore Faith - Podcast-videocast on Youtube.
Dorian has been a university educated, licensed, and ordained pastor in a major mainstream denomination.
Connexions.life for ages 15 to 35+ is an informational resource ministry of Dorian Scott Cole. It is a self-directed movement by individuals involved, not a business or organization. Use of resources is at the user's risk, regardless of payment.
This Website is produced and is copyright © by Dorian Scott Cole (host). Use of this Website for information does not create any legal standing (locus standi, is the ability to appear in court or bring a legal action) or create any other obligation between you (the user) and the host. Use at your own risk. By using this website the user agrees to these terms and copyright terms stated in this "legal" section.
Copyright: Copying and use of information and images on this website, copyright © by Dorian Scott Cole, in any media, is prohibited. Any other images on this website are used by permission or are public domain or generated by AI, with appropriate attribution with the image or below.
Connexions.life for ages 15 to 35+ is an informational resource ministry of Dorian Scott Cole. He began working with this age group many decades ago, and is just like them. The movement is a self-directed by the individuals involved, not a business, organization, or political group. Use of resources is at the user's risk, regardless of payment. Use of the name "Connexions.life" is restricted to those who register, and use of the name does not create legal standing.
Attribution for images not created by Dorian:
Welcome image: Friends having fun in the park by verkeorg on Flickr. Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Centre of Expertise for Digital Youth Work in Finland
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