Be flexible and trust the process — that’s the message youth leader Elias Fennell hopes will resonate with young people he works with on a weekly basis.

At only 24 years of age, Fennell is the founder and current president of the Olympic Uprising Youth Club, which he started in 2019 to create a safe space for young people to get together, interact, learn new things and grow.

According to Fennell, the greatest lesson he can pass off to his club members is one of flexibility.

“Things change, people come and go, the plan doesn’t work out or a better plan comes up. Always in your life, in profession work or your personal life stay flexible that things will be different. It’s not going to always turn out how you expected it but you just have to trust the process and pray that things will work out for you in the end as long as you do what’s required of you. Just do what you have to do, stay flexible and trust in the process and things will come to pass,” Fennell shared.

Olympic Uprising Youth Club is based in the tough Olympic Gardens community. A typical meeting encompasses guest speakers, discussions, games, activities, among other delights that encourage a space where the children feel comfortable “sharing and experiencing”.

With mainly high school students and young adults, a huge part of the club is assisting members with getting jobs and preparing their resumes to achieve the club’s long term goal of creating better citizens of Jamaica — something Fennell is very passionate about.

However, it wasn’t always a passion. In fact, Fennell admits that, before starting the club, he was barely active in his community.

Speaking with OBSERVER ONLINE, the first year psychology student revealed, “I was mostly involved in things outside, in school, in other youth organisations out there but ‘what were you doing for your community?’ It never strike me that this is something that I should be doing.”

He started his club after working as a youth club assistant at the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information as an intern.

“That was my first official job and we were tasked with going into several communities across Kingston and St Andrew and working with the young people in these communities like Maxfield, Olympic Gardens, Waterhouse, Cassia Park and so forth, working with them to revamp their youth club and make it into a place where it’s up and running,” Fennell explained.

“While doing that, I went into these communities and I saw something that stayed with me up until now — I saw young people who were involved in their community and how much joy it gave them to be organising things for the people around them and I could see that they were doing it for the love and they really enjoyed that and eventually it just so happened that I got my own community to work in as well — Olympic Gardens and then I started working with the youth club there and a passion developed. I found I really enjoyed doing this. I look forward to it each week, just being there for them, creating a vibe and a space where they can share and grow and learn,” he continued.

And, even after the internship ended, Fennell continued his work of philanthropy, following his passion and eventually starting his own youth club in the community.

“I think I’m somebody that they can relate to. I’ve done things that they’ve done before and I approach it in a non-judgmental way, I’m not very hard and fast on them, they can do things and, of course, I’ll approach them sternly but it’s also in a gentle way which I find that they find relatable. I address all the problems at the youth club but in a way that somebody doesn’t feel offended or hurt by it. I think I have a knack for it,” he said.