Today, more and more teens are taking a year off - a gap year- before college, feeling unsure of what’s next after high school and ill equipped to pursue professional/higher learning. Teens are sharing a desire for time to search within themselves, to find what at their core gives them meaning, wanting to avoid falling into jobs, paths, or patterns that are inauthentic to their being. As a response to these sentiments heard a first account from hundred of teens they support, a group of educators, mentors and directors of programs centered on meditation and mindfulness for teens, joined efforts to pilot a three month fellowship where in a young person who has participated in similar programming for a year or longer and has built their own personal connection to the practise, will be offered the chance to further explore some of the questions and insights one experiences when attending long mediation retreats at various retreat centers across the nation and abroad.

Richard Louissaint, a teen who has demonstrated a great commitment to the practise of mindfulness, meditation and self discovery will be the first to receive this fellowship offering himself and in part teens alike to know how an opportunity like this can support them exploring their passions and what inspires them. From July to August, Richardson will attend four residential retreats in four different cities across the United States and sit over 130 hours of mediation. This will serve as his first time traveling across the country by himself. The apprenticeship is constructed to support the growth of a teens level of accountability and responsibility through navigating various transpiration and logistical details, maintaining an outlined schedule and itinerary, and meeting the requirements of each retreat.

Each fellow is required to maintain a journal documenting their travels and experiences, is asked to consider specific questions that support their process while on retreat and also help assess the benefit of the fellowship. They will also blog and contribute to a youth centered podcast that supports the experiences of other youth who are building a mediation practise and who are looking for ways to show up for their lives and those of others with more awareness and mindfulness.