Nass­er Khan

Der­rick Shar­bod­ie, a po­lice of­fi­cer since 1989, is the re­cip­i­ent of a na­tion­al award, the Cha­co­nia Pub­lic Ser­vice Medal of Mer­it Sil­ver, in 2011. His pub­lic ser­vice is cen­tred around his work with at-risk youth at the St James Po­lice Youth Club, which he found­ed and es­tab­lished in 1992, and which he is still in charge of and shows no signs of let­ting up.

The out­reach co-or­di­na­tor of Project Ex­cel�a Na­tion­al Drug Pre­ven­tion pro­gramme es­tab­lished in 1996 and geared to­wards keep­ing our young peo­ple drug free and pro­mot­ing healthy lifestyles.

In 2000 the Youth Club/Youth Em­pow­er­ment Cen­tre, lo­cat­ed at 5 Sier­ra Leone Road, Pe­tit Val­ley, es­tab­lished the first Sub­stance Abuse Pre­ven­tion and Sus­pen­sion Pro­gramme. The cen­tre, which is open and ac­tive six days a week, has an IT lab, a male and fe­male sup­port group, of­fers re­me­di­al class­es, class­es in African and tas­sa drum­ming, African dance, gar­ment con­struc­tion, and com­put­er and small ap­pli­ance re­pairs.

There is al­so a mu­sic school host­ed by the Min­istry of the Arts & Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism (brass, wind and steel in­stru­ments), a 16-piece steel or­ches­tra, and the cen­tre al­so serves as a tem­po­rary home for eight young men be­tween the ages 11-21. The St James Po­lice Youth Club/Project Ex­cel cel­e­brates 24 years of com­mu­ni­ty and youth de­vel­op­ment work has an out­stand­ing track record in com­mu­ni­ty projects, and prides it­self as the first Po­lice Youth Club in Trinidad with its own Po­lice Youth Club-Youth Em­pow­er­ment Cen­tre (A Friend­ly Space).

Of­fi­cer Shar­bod­ie is trained and cer­ti­fied in anger man­age­ment, con­flict res­o­lu­tion and youth lead­er­ship. In 2014 he re­ceived train­ing and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion as a trau­ma fa­cil­i­ta­tor. He has par­tic­i­pat­ed in train­ing pro­grammes in best prac­tices in youth ser­vices in Bar­ba­dos, Brazil, and in Port­land, Ore­gon, Kansas City, North Car­oli­na, Wash­ing­ton DC, New York, New Jer­sey, and Philadel­phia in the USA.

In March 2015 Of­fi­cer Shar­bod­ie was cer­ti­fied in Best Prac­tice in Youth & Vi­o­lence Method­ol­o­gy host­ed by Fight For Peace Glob­al Alum­ni which was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and as a re­sult, the St James Po­lice Youth Club is now a reg­is­tered mem­ber of the In­ter­na­tion­al Fight For Peace Glob­al Alum­ni Team Pro­gramme.

In April 2015 Of­fi­cer Shar­bod­ie made his­to­ry by be­ing the first Com­mu­ni­ty Polic­ing of­fi­cer to ad­dress del­e­gates at Caribbean Re­gion Com­mon­wealth Youth Min­is­ters' Meet­ing and Youth Lead­ers Fo­rum theme ti­tled Youth Par­tic­i­pa­tion at the Heart of Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment in An­tigua. He al­so formed part of a pan­el that pre­sent­ed rec­om­men­da­tions to min­is­ters and del­e­gates in at­ten­dance in the area of youth and vi­o­lence. He has been in­vit­ed by the An­tiguan gov­ern­ment to as­sist in the es­tab­lish­ment of po­lice youth clubs and to con­duct lec­tures at schools.

He has risen above his cir­cum­stances and has gone on to live two of his dreams, be­com­ing a nur­tur­ing and car­ing po­lice of­fi­cer, and giv­ing back to the youth in the same way his teach­ers gave to him.He is cur­rent­ly at­tached to the West­ern Di­vi­sion Com­mu­ni­ty Polic­ing unit.Of­fi­cer Shar­bod­ie is mar­ried and the proud fa­ther of two chil­dren.

Q: Tell us a bit of your ear­ly years.

A: I was born and grew up on Nel­son Street, and be­came an or­phan at age 14 while at­tend­ing Bel­mont Ju­nior Sec­ondary School. My broth­er, who was a mem­ber of the T&T Reg­i­ment, nev­er re­cov­ered af­ter my moth­er's death and as a re­sult, even­tu­al­ly passed away. I had to work and go to school in or­der to con­tribute to­wards tak­ing care of my six sis­ters.

At what schools/in­sti­tu­tions did you re­ceive your ed­u­ca­tion (pri­ma­ry, sec­ondary, oth­er)?

Rosary Boys' RC School, Bel­mont Jr Sec, St James Sec, John Don­ald­son (off­set print­ing), Diplo­ma in Youth Work from the Min­istry of Sport & Youth Af­fairs.

How would you de­scribe your­self?

Ap­proach­able, com­mit­ted, con­sis­tent, be­lieves in stick-abil­i­ty, self-dis­ci­pline, team play­er, a great lis­ten­er, a deep sense of em­pa­thy and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty.

When and how did you get in­to Com­mu­ni­ty Polic­ing and the Youth Club?

I was in­tro­duced to Com­mu­ni­ty Polic­ing by In­spec­tor Grace El­liot, re­tired Sgt Mary Reid, DCP Win­ston Coop­er, de­ceased, af­ter the coup in 1990. When Po­lice Pub­lic Af­fairs was first es­tab­lished and head­ed by Win­ston Coop­er and then in 1996, when com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing was es­tab­lished by the then com­mis­sion­er of po­lice Ken­ny Mo­hammed, de­ceased.

What was the mo­ti­vat­ing fac­tor in start­ing and be­ing so pas­sion­ate­ly in­volved with the Youth Club Cen­tre?

Af­ter fin­ish­ing my four-hour tour at Wes­t­end Po­lice Sta­tion, I would give my lec­tur­ing abil­i­ty to sev­er­al schools with­in the di­vi­sion. How­ev­er, through the es­tab­lish­ment of the Po­lice Youth Club a greater re­la­tion­ship was forged be­tween youths and­po­lice. Young peo­ple saw an­oth­er side to polic­ing and a greater con­nec­tion was es­tab­lished and as a re­sult, the love of Po­lice Youth Club evolved in­to the gospel of the Po­lice Ser­vice eg, in­stead of young peo­ple run­ning from the po­lice they be­gan to run to the po­lice.

What is the biggest need/pri­or­i­ty at the Youth Club Cen­tre and how can peo­ple help?

Fund­ing is the great­est need in or­der to sus­tain our projects, pay our tu­tors, and gen­er­al main­te­nance of our cen­tre. Any or­gan­i­sa­tion, in­di­vid­ual, com­pa­ny or group will­ing to make a fi­nan­cial con­tri­bu­tion can do so gen­er­ous­ly to the St James Po­lice Youth Club Re­pub­lic Bank ac­count 440121100701.

What oth­er in­for­ma­tion about the Youth Club Cen­tre would you like to share with our read­ers...con­tact in­fo, so­cial me­dia etc? Up­com­ing events?

The club is in the process of or­gan­is­ing the cel­e­bra­tion of its 25th an­niver­sary in No­vem­ber 2017 and com­mem­o­rat­ing same with a host of ac­tiv­i­ties eg, Award Cer­e­mo­ny, Ca­reer Guid­ance, Join A Club Not A Gang Peace March, Gospel Con­cert, Sports and Fam­i­ly Fun Day, etc. We have al­so card­ed sev­er­al fund-rais­ers–bus ex­cur­sion, Food Fair, May Fair and Dance, Boat Ride, just to name a few.

The club al­so prides it­self in hav­ing its func­tion­al man­age­ment board, par­ent coun­cil, youth ex­ec­u­tive body, or­gan­is­ing com­mit­tee and men's group which are set up as im­por­tant pil­lars to en­sure the prop­er func­tion of the or­gan­i­sa­tion. Fi­nal­ly, I wish to thank my as­sis­tant leader Of­fi­cer Nicholas Singh, our tu­tors, all the NGOs, CBOs and NPOs that have net­worked and has part­nered with us in res­cu­ing our chil­dren from a life of crime delin­quen­cy and de­viant be­hav­iour.

How many hours a week do you spend on work?

Nine­ty hours a week and some­times more on Sun­days based on the na­ture of ac­tiv­i­ty.

What about fam­i­ly/hob­bies?

In re­cent times, I have grown to val­ue and have a greater ap­pre­ci­a­tion to en­sure that my com­mit­ment to fam­i­ly re­mains sep­a­rate and apart. As a re­sult, more qual­i­ty time is be­ing giv­en. How­ev­er, I have the full sup­port of my wife and the time spent at the cen­tre. My fam­i­ly is gen­er­al­ly in­volved and as­sist in spear­head­ing most of the projects.

What chal­lenges on the "job" do you en­counter and how do you over­come them?

Re­sources, time­ly fund­ing for projects, more hu­man re­source, greater re­spect for the ser­vice that we pro­vide, trained per­son­nel, and in­cen­tive pack­age that puts on par with any oth­er spe­cialised unit in the Po­lice Ser­vice eg, a Youth Club al­lowance, fi­nan­cial award, etc.

Who have in­spired you in your life and how?

My de­ceased moth­er, Di­an­na Shar­bod­ie, de­ceased DCP Win­ston Coop­er nur­tured me in my ear­ly years while be­ing at­tached to pub­lic af­fairs unit, de­ceased Cpl Regi­nald Jack­son, Snr Supt Ru­by Lewis, who re­tired as head of first po­lice so­cial wel­fare unit, ret ACP Samp­son-Browne, Sgt Mary Reid, ret ASP Glen­da Smith, ret Sgt Fitzroy Beck­les, Pas­tor Dr Clive Dot­tin, and the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mr Stephen Williams, these were some of the peo­ple who took me un­der their wings and had a pos­i­tive im­pact on me which as­sist­ed in nur­tur­ing my lec­tur­ing and lead­er­ship skills. And every so of­ten re­mind­ed me I have a gift of call­ing.

What do you feel are your great­est ac­com­plish­ments thus far?

The es­tab­lish­ment of the first sus­pen­sion cen­tre in T&T; mem­bers of the St James Po­lice Youth Club elite Drum­mers; and Ig­nit­ed Dancers win­ning the drums of thun­der com­pe­ti­tion in Brook­lyn, New York; trans­form­ing a gov­ern­ment quar­ters in­to an in­sti­tu­tion where we pro­vide home­work club, com­put­er class­es, male and fe­male sup­port group and so much more un­der one roof; ac­quir­ing a 14-seater bus spon­sored by the Cit­i­zen Se­cu­ri­ty Pro­gramme which is used to trans­port chil­dren–those who live in high-risk ar­eas–safe­ly home; hav­ing to ex­ist for 24 years as a flag­ship and mod­el youth club with very lit­tle re­sources.

Tell us about your in­spi­ra­tion to do the type of "work" you do.

When young peo­ple are trans­formed and moved from a sense of hope­less to hope­ful­ness, when a seed is plant­ed and ten years lat­er blos­soms in­to some­thing beau­ti­ful eg, ac­coun­tant, teacher, po­lice of­fi­cer, sol­dier, etc, you are then in­spired to in­spire oth­ers and all isn't loss.

What dai­ly mot­to/cre­do do you live by and in a few words, your recipe for suc­cess?

"Good ed­u­ca­tion makes us shine but good dis­ci­pline makes you glit­ter." "Pres­sure makes you pre­cious." "When mum­my fails, dad­dy fails, I will not be a fail­ure in life." "Your at­ti­tude will de­ter­mine your al­ti­tude." What­ev­er you put in­to life so shall you re­ceive.

If some­one on­ly reads a cou­ple lines of this in­ter­view what would you want them to note most?

That I and oth­er youth club lead­ers go be­yond the call of du­ty in or­der to reach the many youths who are lost. We need their part­ner­ship and sup­port eg, vol­un­teer­ing time, fi­nan­cial and on­go­ing prayer.

What oth­er in­for­ma­tion about the Youth Club Cen­tre would you like to share with our read­ers?

The youth club is like a sec­ond home for many of the young peo­ple. We are in ur­gent need of a mul­ti­pur­pose cen­tre since at present our cen­tre is too small and we have out­grown the many ac­tiv­i­ties host­ed at our cen­tre.

It will be an ex­cel­lent gift as we cel­e­brate our 25th an­niver­sary in No­vem­ber 2017, to up­grade this. Fi­nal­ly, young peo­ple are not bad, they just make poor choic­es be­cause of poor ex­em­plars. For those who wish to know more about us please vis­it our Face­book at www.face­book.com/stjpyc or web­site at www.st­jame­spyc.com or call/ What­sApp 632-6084/296-1218 /291-6298.

De­scribe your­self in two words, one be­gin­ning with D, the oth­er with S (your ini­tials)?

De­vot­ed Spir­it.