Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor-News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Bright and blos­som­ing youths of T&T are be­ing lured in­to the dark un­der­world of crime and gang vi­o­lence, many of them los­ing their lives or fac­ing mur­der charges.

The Gov­ern­ment is chal­lenged dai­ly to find ways to help save these young peo­ple—the fu­ture of our na­tion.

The for­ma­tion of the Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice (MYDNS) was al­most an an­swer to the rise in vi­o­lence and delin­quen­cy be­ing per­pe­trat­ed by most­ly young men and some young women across the na­tion. The Sun­day Guardian sat down last week with Min­is­ter Fos­ter Cum­mings, who heads the Youth De­vel­op­ment min­istry—es­tab­lished by the Prime Min­is­ter in 2020 “with the pri­ma­ry fo­cus to ad­vance the youth de­vel­op­ment agen­da and to pro­mote na­tion­al ser­vice”—to find out about the im­pact.

Apart from the 28 ac­tive pro­grammes un­der its am­bit for young peo­ple, the min­istry has gone a step fur­ther to find a safe space for chil­dren be­ing ex­pelled from school and falling by the way­side, Cum­mings said.

The min­is­ter, who ac­knowl­edged that young peo­ple were at risk but de­nied there was a cri­sis among youths in the coun­try, said they were pre­sent­ing “a more dis­ci­plined en­vi­ron­ment where these chil­dren can have an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty to­wards their ed­u­ca­tion and their de­vel­op­ment."

Youth and crime: Who is re­spon­si­ble?

Be­tween 2015 and 2019, of the 510 peo­ple charged with mur­der, 62 per cent of them were be­tween the ages of 15 and 29, and 96 per cent of them were male. Those sta­tis­tics were shared by Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly at a break­fast meet­ing in Feb­ru­ary.

“And if we look at 2022 more re­cent sta­tis­tics, 54 per cent of all vi­o­lent crime, in­clud­ing mur­der, is be­ing com­mit­ted by youth be­tween the ages of 15 and 29,” she fur­ther added.

The last aca­d­e­m­ic year al­so pre­sent­ed sev­er­al school vi­o­lence in­ci­dents, which dom­i­nat­ed both so­cial me­dia and the na­tion­al news cy­cle. Min­is­ter Cum­mings has served in the Youth De­vel­op­ment Min­istry for the last three years, hav­ing been pre­vi­ous­ly ap­point­ed as the Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port in 2020.

“We have sev­er­al is­sues con­fronting us,” Cum­mings said when asked about the root prob­lem of young peo­ple go­ing astray. “We can start with the fam­i­ly. We can say, and we know for a fact, that a lot of fam­i­lies have is­sues, and those is­sues af­fect the chil­dren and how they de­vel­op.”

He went fur­ther in point­ing out how com­mu­ni­ties have less­er in­flu­ence in rais­ing chil­dren. Cum­mings al­so said schools and church­es need to play a greater role in the de­vel­op­ment of young peo­ple.

As the na­tion grap­ples with crime, many of which are be­ing com­mit­ted by young peo­ple, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher put the spot­light on par­ents just over a week ago. “We want to warn par­ents (and guardians) be­cause we have seen chil­dren in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties ... we are go­ing to use the ex­ist­ing leg­is­la­tion and hold par­ents ac­count­able for the ac­tiv­i­ties of their chil­dren.”

When asked if he sup­port­ed the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er’s stance, Cum­mings said, “It de­pends on the cir­cum­stances, and if there is ne­glect, the ne­glect has to be treat­ed in a par­tic­u­lar way, and that will de­pend on the leg­is­la­tion and the ex­ist­ing laws, and any­thing that is done with­in the ex­ist­ing laws, I will sup­port.” On the top­ic of school vi­o­lence, Cum­mings con­firmed there has been a tri­par­tite dis­cus­sion be­tween his min­istry, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, and the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry on a pro­gramme that has been for­mu­lat­ed and mod­elled along the Mi­LAT pro­gramme.

It will be man­aged by the Spe­cialised Youth Ser­vice Pro­grammes (SYSP) out of the re­serves of the De­fence Force. The pro­gramme will be called MY­PART As­set. Cum­mings ex­plained, “All of the stu­dents who have been ex­pelled from sec­ondary school for one rea­son or an­oth­er, most of it be­ing de­viant be­hav­iour, will come in­to that pro­gramme.

They will go through a pe­ri­od of as­sess­ment of three months, and then we di­rect them in­to ei­ther the tech­ni­cal-vo­ca­tion­al as­pect, which is the MY­PART, or the aca­d­e­m­ic stream, which is the Mil­i­tary-led Aca­d­e­m­ic Train­ing (Mi­LAT).

“What we are hop­ing to do in­stead of them just be­ing ex­pelled from school and falling by the way­side is that we present an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty in a more dis­ci­plined en­vi­ron­ment where these chil­dren can have an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty to­wards their ed­u­ca­tion and their de­vel­op­ment.”

There will al­so be a fe­male ver­sion of the Mi­LAT pro­gramme, as in its cur­rent state, it is on­ly open to young men.

  Pro­grammes in abun­dance

For the last two decades, sev­er­al ad­min­is­tra­tions have es­tab­lished pro­grammes aimed at help­ing vul­ner­a­ble youths across the coun­try.

MYDNS has 28 ac­tive pro­grammes un­der its am­bit. It in­cludes Youth and Women in Agri­cul­ture, where over 1,000 youth farm­ers have been trained, the In­dus­tri­al Ap­pren­tice­ship Pro­gramme that trains young peo­ple in ar­eas such as drilling rig op­er­a­tions, and the more com­mon ones such as Civil­ian Con­ser­va­tion Corps (CCC) and Mi­LAT.

Over the last three years, Cum­mings said over 13,000 young peo­ple have gone through the pro­grammes; 120 peo­ple have ap­plied and re­ceived the Small and Mi­cro En­tre­pre­neur­ship grants, while 240 more will be dis­trib­uted in the next month and 49 in To­ba­go.

In the last bud­get al­lo­ca­tion, Cum­mings’ min­istry re­ceived just over $270 mil­lion. He would like an in­creased bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion in the next fis­cal year but said he un­der­stands the eco­nom­ic chal­lenges and will make do with what he gets. Pressed on the his­tor­i­cal abun­dance and reach of the youth pro­grammes through­out the length and breadth of T&T and a crime rate that con­tin­ues to rise, Cum­mings re­spond­ed, “One of the prob­lems we have in this coun­try is that as ad­min­is­tra­tions change, the fo­cus changes, the in­vest­ment changes, the pol­i­cy changes, and it af­fects our de­vel­op­ment.”

He used the now-de­funct youth camps as an ex­am­ple, which he said the Gov­ern­ment was work­ing to re-es­tab­lish af­ter it was stopped when the PNM lost elec­tions 14 years ago.

Ques­tioned about the ur­gent need to stem the flow of mur­ders grip­ping the na­tion. The mur­der count for the year so far has gone past 430, and the MP for La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro in­sist­ed politi­cis­ing the is­sue of crime does not help. In­stead, he said the great chal­lenge was to pen­e­trate the minds of young peo­ple who are en­ter­ing a life of crime.

“How do we get in­to the minds of some­one who would take up a gun and pump bul­lets in­to a five-year-old child?” he asked. “How do we ad­dress the mind of that in­di­vid­ual? Is that just a gov­ern­ment is­sue?”

Cum­mings went fur­ther in say­ing there are is­sues in the so­ci­ety that “every­one has to take on on­board and ac­count for” be­cause if we “sen­sa­tion­alise it or politi­cise it and think it is just a gov­ern­ment is­sue,” it is go­ing down the wrong path. The min­is­ter called for a “bal­anc­ing” of in­for­ma­tion that is put out in the pub­lic do­main to both in­form and in­spire.

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Coun­ter­ing pub­lic al­le­ga­tions

While Cum­mings re­mains pub­licly vis­i­ble and com­mit­ted to his role in safe­guard­ing the fu­ture of youths through the MYDNS’s pro­grammes, he al­so has to con­front al­le­ga­tions in the pub­lic sphere with­in his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer. He is cur­rent­ly su­ing the State over a leaked Spe­cial Branch re­port that al­leged crim­i­nal con­duct on his part and the fail­ure of the TTPS to with­draw it.

His lawyers, head­ed by Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC, stat­ed he was not giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond to the “un­found­ed and base­less” al­le­ga­tions. 

Ma­haraj al­so re­vealed that Cum­mings de­cid­ed not to ben­e­fit from any com­pen­sa­tion that he may be award­ed if he is even­tu­al­ly suc­cess­ful in the case. He said Cum­mings made it clear “ ... any dam­ages he gets would be put in a spe­cial fund for the ben­e­fit of his con­stituents, es­pe­cial­ly the young peo­ple.” When asked how the al­le­ga­tions af­fect­ed his rep­u­ta­tion among the young peo­ple he leads, Cum­mings said, “I say to young peo­ple; con­sid­er your life a can­vas, and you are the painter. You are the one shap­ing what you would like your life to be. There are go­ing to be peo­ple who pass with their own paint­brush and try to shape the im­age that they would like to paint of you. I do not al­low my de­trac­tors any ac­cess to my can­vas. They can print what­ev­er they want. They can make what­ev­er al­le­ga­tions they want. I am con­fi­dent in my abil­i­ty, my char­ac­ter, and what I do.”

Cum­mings: A force for the fu­ture?

Our in­ter­view with the min­is­ter came as na­tion­al at­ten­tion turned to­wards the prime min­is­ter’s de­ci­sion to ap­point PNM chair­man, En­er­gy Min­is­ter, and Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young to act in his ab­sence. It comes af­ter nine years of Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert act­ing for Dr Kei­th Row­ley. With an elec­tion year on the hori­zon, we asked Cum­mings about his own po­lit­i­cal am­bi­tions and whether he would like to one day lead this coun­try. He an­swered, “Once you en­ter pol­i­tics, you en­ter to serve. I’m here to serve in any ca­pac­i­ty that over time the peo­ple of this coun­try will have me serve in. I did not en­ter pol­i­tics to be­come a prime min­is­ter; I en­tered pol­i­tics out of a de­sire to serve the peo­ple, which I en­joy do­ing ... Wher­ev­er the jour­ney takes me, I will fol­low, but that de­pends on the will of the peo­ple.”