By Evelina Rimkuse, Gy1

    A great writer once said: “But time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart. And the more people saved, the less they had.” With time being the most precious thing and most people not able to afford it, a lot of the essential pillars of life go unnoticed. Ironically enough, it is exactly the people who master the magic of making time seem absolutely unimportant who receive the least attention.

    Josef Elias and Emilio Pezoa Amigo are leaders of Southside Youth Club, and undoubtedly dedicated shapers of our future generations. I got the chance to discuss the pros and cons of their profession, as well as take a look at the everyday life at their youth club, with them.

RimkusePhoto: Emilio Pezoa Amigo and Josef Elias in their jackets showing the logos of their Southside youth club, in Tumba.

Rimkuse: Do you think teenagers listen to you more than to their teachers?

Amigo: Yes, I think so. Because we are not just their leaders, we are not just their role models –– we are also their friends. So it does get more personal. They come to the youth club, even the ones that are feeling down, and open themselves up and try to solve their problems with our help. We take care of stuff like that. We are very observant when it comes to these things.

Rimkuse: What do you see as the purpose of your work here?

Elias: We are very media oriented so our aim is to raise our visitors’, our adolescents’, dreams as well as their visions, and somehow try to help them exceed their goals. Besides, we influence their ability to think in adult ways… Practically, we are shaping these youths. We teach them how they are supposed to be once they actually enter adult society. So it is a very strong beginning point for the teenagers. And we believe we are at least a contributing factor.

Rimkuse: You mentioned focusing on media, and on your website the impression of working with music and film is even stronger. Could you tell me a bit more about your individual work-processes?

Elias: Well, we do have our own specializations. Emilio is responsible for music and I’m in charge of film here at Southside. For me it’s mostly about going from preproduction to the final product, there’s more focus on the process of making a movie than actually finishing it. If it gets done then that’s great, but we don’t want the kids to feel any pressure over needing to finish any. Instead, we let them go as far as they want.

Amigo: It’s similar with music, but there it’s more about really wrapping up, from starting and writing a song to releasing something on YouTube or Spotify. We go through a lot of songwriting, production and mixing. There’s a lot to do within music so here they get to test it and feel –– “Okay, if I continue doing music, how will I position myself?” You can be daring and choose two things.

Rimkuse: Is there any chance you might be doing this for money?

Elias: You can’t really work 100% in a youth club, unless you have a very good team. That’s why it’s quite hard to get stuck in a youth club, but both Emilio and I have worked here for a long time and who knows, maybe we will work here up until the age of sixty. The thing is that this is our part-time job; our passions are located in other places too. So what we are doing here is that we are teaching our profession to teenagers, and we are doing what we actually love. In my case I can do movies and get paid for it, which is quite hard otherwise. Emilio gets to do music and get paid for it. So there is absolutely a drive in this, we are passionate about our work. Then of course it’s a lot of fun to be able to influence youngsters in general. After all they are our future.

Amigo: Of course we are doing it for the youths. We do show them our own things too, our personal work. They get impressed ––  it’s not like we’re bragging about it, but we mostly do it to show that “you can also accomplish this”. We come from around here as well, we’ve been their age too.

Rimkuse: What do you work with besides the youth club?

Elias: Emilio works a lot within music outside of here too and wants to succeed in music. I, myself am an entrepreneur –– I run several different companies.

Amigo: I would prefer to work with both (in the future). With music and with the youth club.

Elias: Yes, absolutely, why not? As long as you get to have one foot in here and get to feel that you have the influence that you have.

Rimkuse: You talk about influence a lot. That can be expressed in many ways, for example, in the amount of work they put into their studies. Do teens come to do their homework here?

Elias: It happens very rarely to be honest, but it does happen. From time to time.

Amigo: Of course, they do their stuff at home later, but we do not want to say to them: “Come, bring your homework here; come, I’ll help you with your homework!” If they do come to us and say: “Listen, I really need help with this question,” then we help that person. But I don’t think that they think so much about homework when they come here.

Elias: That’s not the point, to sit here and think about all their assignments either –– this is their leisure time. Here they should be able to relax and think about everything else that doesn’t have anything to do with responsibility.

Rimkuse: Do they usually come back and say hi, even after turning eighteen?

Elias: Yeah, it happens all the time. Sometimes we even have to ask them to leave, because they are here too often. This is like their second living room. Thus there is a dip, they disappear for a while after turning eighteen. They get to go out to the pub etc., but then six months, a year passes, and then they are back.

Rimkuse: Is there anything special about Southside?

Elias: We have a very strong hip-hop culture here. So now for two years in a row we’ve done Hip Hop Jam here. It’s been a big event and quite many people attend.

Rimkuse: Have people from the youth club performed?

Amigo: The biggest focus has been on the artists we have here, yes, but we’ve had artists from outside of here too.

Elias: Yes, it’s been very fun. Successful too. There were many teens that wanted to do it themselves, took responsibility and ran it. We were just in the background and supported them. It was fun!

They did in fact have the same jacket on that day, even before deciding to wear their Southside hoodies. Twin jackets, twin youth-club leaders –– quadruple the power. My thanks goes to them for both taking the time to chat, and for their everyday work in general. Keep it up!