It Was Tough For Jonathan To Find A Job, But That Didn’t Stop Him.
Jonathan sat down with people he loved, and people who could think and plan with him, and designed a new role for himself.
One that he loves and that makes a difference for others and his community.
Jonathan’s work reminds us all that if you don’t easily fit into what’s available, CREATE SOMETHING NEW!
Jonathan’s new role and journey had some important parts to it:
- Having something that Jonathan was really interested in. Johnathan has always loved street libraries and regularly searched out the ones in his local community
- Jonathan could easily see that others had the same interests as him and would welcome what he did
- Jonathan wanted to have a street library at the front of his house as well
- He wanted to have more than just his own Library, Jonathan has a good heart and community spirit
- He wanted to help other libraries in his community to be better. Better means being full of books for people to share.
- Jonathan was surrounded by people, his mum and staff, who had the drive and skills to help, and stick with him.
What is it that Jonathan has done?
Jonathan loves street libraries and the idea of sharing them with others. So he started his own Community Street Library at the front of his house, which is near a park so it gets lots of traffic. He quickly realised, when walking around the suburbs that there were many street libraries, and a lot of these were often low on books. He said he wanted to help those libraries to make more books available, so what did he do.?
- He got all of the library addresses by walking around his community to find them
- He with the help of a professional artist, designed a map. That looked like he wanted it to look. (the same Artist has painted Jonathans library, so it also ooked like he wanted it to)
- This map is letter dropped to all of the houses in the area, and displayed in other places for his community to share
- He developed a relationship with a large Op Shop so he could pick up books that would have otherwise gone to landfill, and regularly restocks all of the libraries in his map
Jonathon will not just be happy to have a library and share books with others. He will meet a lot of people through this who share his interests and will have more connections in his life, he will be seen as the valuable community member that he is. He is also doing what some, but definitely not most people do, he is making a positive difference for members of his community that he may never meet. That alone should make all of us proud of him.
- Jonathan’s brochure is below.
Some points to make about what Jonathan has created:
- Jonathan reminds us that if the standard range of opportunities available to you in the community don’t work for you, you don’t have to spend your life sitting down watching TV. Create something new that makes sense for you.
- After you go WOW, isn’t Jonathan fantastic, and you should be doing that because he is, don’t imagine for a second that getting to this point was easy for Jonathan, or the people who supported him. It didn’t happen because someone had a nice idea and some nice people made it happen.
- This happened because Jonathan was surrounded by hard working, value driven staff, along with a great mum, who know him well and took the time, and created moments in time to listen to him. The staff didn’t just depend on themselves but also had guidance of people with broader experiences.
- The people who surrounded Jonathan didn’t just look after him, (Don’t you just hate it when that happens. That usually ends up with movies, coffee shops and shopping centres) they listened to him and let him take the lead. It took 18 months, of thinking, planning, talking, revisiting issues and role creation to get the point he is at now.
Jonathan isn’t just doing a role, he is making a contribution to his community. We cant wait to see what he does next.
