Yesterday, we drove an hour away from the crowded streets of Kingston into Manchester. Manchester is in the mountains, it is much much cooler and rainier than Kingston, and it is also a calmer.
Our colleague, Knife was the guest speaker at the National Center for Youth Development Fair at Manchester High School.
National Center for Youth Development NCYD targets the youth in the community, to expose them to organizations (mostly volunteer and non for profit) that will help them in their next steps after high school.
Keitho Nembhad knembhard21@gmail.com ran this program for the youth in the community. At this fair were representatives from organizations like the Ministry of Health who was there to promote safe sex and to screen for HIV. In addition, there were services like loan and credit approval, and immigration services.
One of the main components of this fair was Heart Trust /National Training Agency. This group aims to develop the youth's entrepreneurial spirit by training them in both academic and vocational skills in their community. The point is to have the youth leave high school with a skill that they can develop into a business, to help them create a career path that will lead to their employment, and the employment of their future employees.
Knife, the guest speaker spoke about the importance of building up Jamaica's economy through Jamaica's youth. He focused on the year 2030, and stated that many of Jamaica's youth will not see 2030 because the violence is so rampant that many males don't make it to their 23rd birthday. This is a tragic statistic and staggering reality. I listened to the radio this morning, and there is an entire segment dedicated to funeral announcements, and most of the people who are being announced are young people.
Knife emphasized that if given the proper nurturing learning environment, Jamaica's youth will be saved, and save and help others. He spoke of the over 140,000 at-risk youth in Jamaica that will face a dire future, unless they are given the skills to be business owners and employers.
His message was to reset the priorities in the country to focus on the country's natural resources beyond tourism (since most of the money does not benefit Jamaica or Jamaicans) but to finance Jamaica enterprises, grow Jamaican crops, to sell Jamaican products, to employ Jamaican people. He pushed the youth to create a new race of Jamaicans, a race that would be empowered to embrace their culture, their resources and their identity as individuals and as a collective.
Afterwards, I sat in on a focus group run by Young Women of Power www.wix.com/youngwomen/y-wop. This is an organization started a year ago as a mentoring program for young women. This group was founded by Lanisia Rhoden, Manchester's Festival Queen of 2009 and a requirement of this title is to start a project for the community. There were young women and young men who were in this focus groups inquiring about services, referrals and becoming apart of the program. I saw another group of inspirational young people committed to the future of Jamaica, and I hope that they flourish in the work that they do.
There is something in the air here. Jamaica is a country in crisis and there are many people who are actively engaged in saving the youth and in saving Jamaica.
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