Photo By Noriko Kudo | Hannah Maza, center, director of the Camp Zama Youth Center, poses for a photo with Lucinda Ward, left, an Army Community Service specialist, and Jared Barrick, right, Child and Youth Services coordinator, Nov. 23, 2021 at the Youth Center. Maza recently earned her certification as a Resilience Training Assistant. ()
CAMP ZAMA, Japan (Feb. 11, 2022) – Hannah Maza says her job as director of the Camp Zama Youth Center is one of the best she’s ever had, and that motivates her to always be looking for opportunities to learn how to be a better leader.
With that in mind, Maza said she jumped at the chance for a training opportunity when Lucinda Ward, a specialist at Camp Zama’s Army Community Service, offered to train her to be a Resilience Training Assistant.
Ward who is a certified Master Resilience Trainer, acted as Maza’s instructor for the RTA classes. The two went through the classes, which cover topics like leadership, decision-making and positive personalities, every morning for almost three weeks, finishing in November 2021.
“I learned a great deal about my leadership style, [and my] strengths and weaknesses,” Maza said. “[These skills] can be applied in all aspects of life, personally and professionally.”
The RTA training helped her look inward, Maza said, and reflect on both the things she’d accomplished and the hardships she’d experienced since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. She was also able to see how far she’d come as a leader to the youth in her community by managing the Teen Center, as well as some large-scale events and programs there.
Maza was the first RTA Ward trained after becoming a Master Resiliency Trainer. One of the reasons Ward said she chose Maza as her first trainee was that Maza was both willing to learn, and to develop those skills and become a “superb” MRT in the future.
Maza completed 25 hours of training and learned the 14 MRT skills such as “Real-Time Resilience,” “Hunt the Good Stuff” and “Put It in Perspective.”
“Hannah’s ability to retain the principles and skills [of the course] was incredible,” Ward said.
Maza is in a great position to teach and make the MRT skills she learned applicable to real-world issues teenagers face, and to get the teens at the Youth Center to practice MRT skills on a consistent basis, Ward said.
One of the lessons Maza learned during the RTA course and that she wants to pass along to her teens is the idea of “seeing the best and making the most out of poor situations.” Maza said she sees that the teens are still enduring the impacts of the pandemic, which is affecting them mentally, socially and educationally.
Her first step in that direction will be giving a short seminar to the teens on how to love and appreciate themselves during an upcoming event at the Youth Center.
“I want to become a better leader with positive intentions to give back to my team, the teens and the community,” Maza said.
