Youth em­pow­er­ment was the com­mon aim when PSI Caribbean hand­ed over HIV/Aids pre­ven­tion ed­u­ca­tion­al ma­te­ri­als to YTEPP on No­vem­ber 8.

Dur­ing a brief cer­e­mo­ny at YTEPP's Ch­agua­nas head­quar­ters, Pop­u­la­tion Ser­vices In­ter­na­tion­al Caribbean (PSI/C) rep­re­sen­ta­tives do­nat­ed MTV Stay­ing Alive in a Box toolk­its to a team of YTEPP ex­ec­u­tives.

The kits con­tain movies, video clips and ac­tiv­i­ties to be used by YTEPP fa­cil­i­ta­tors in ed­u­cat­ing young peo­ple be­tween 15 and 30 years of age about HIV/Aids.

PSI/C in­tern Sher­ine Pow­er­ful gave a short pre­sen­ta­tion de­tail­ing the Stay­ing Alive kit's re­late­able and rel­e­vant con­tents, be­fore YTEPP CEO Nigel For­ge­nie spoke. He laud­ed PSI/C's choice to part­ner with YTEPP, as he said they shared a com­mon mis­sion in em­pow­er­ing the na­tion's youth.

"YTEPP is not just about de­liv­er­ing in­struc­tion," he said, "but al­so im­pact­ing the lives of trainees." He said the in­sti­tu­tion want­ed to fo­cus on im­part­ing life skills and cre­at­ing well-round­ed in­di­vid­u­als, pay­ing spe­cial at­ten­tion to at-risk youths.

He said YTEPP could help spread PSI/C's mes­sage through their wide-rang­ing net­works, adding that he looked for­ward to see­ing the ben­e­fits that would come of the col­lab­o­ra­tion.

PSI/C's ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Ma­ri­na Hi­laire-Bartett praised YTEPP's work, call­ing it "an in­vest­ment in gen­er­a­tions." She said she al­so looked for­ward to fu­ture part­ner­ships with them.

PSI/C, a non-prof­it health mar­ket­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion be­hind the Got It Get It brand, us­es so­cial mar­ket­ing to cre­ate pos­i­tive sex­u­al be­hav­iour change around the Caribbean. They are now broad­en­ing their fo­cus to in­clude sex­u­al and re­pro­duc­tive health, as well as over­all lifestyle choic­es, pre­ventable chron­ic dis­ease and gen­der-based vi­o­lence pre­ven­tion.

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