At the Open­ing Cer­e­mo­ny of the “Op­er­a­tion Re­cov­ery” Train­ing Camp of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cadet Force’s Po­ten­tial Non-Com­mis­sioned Of­fi­cers Cadre, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty the Ho­n­ourable Fitzger­ald Hinds gave the as­sur­ance that the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty will con­tin­ue to sup­port the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cadet Force.

Min­ster Hinds says that these or­gan­i­sa­tions have a ma­jor role to play in the build­ing and shap­ing of our so­ci­ety and be­lieve that de­viant be­hav­iour amongst our youth can be al­le­vi­at­ed through so­cial in­ter­ven­tion pro­grammes.

De­tails fol­low in this press re­lease from the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty:

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty the Ho­n­ourable Fitzger­ald Hinds M.P. gave the as­sur­ance that the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty will con­tin­ue to give sup­port to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cadet Force (TTCF), in keep­ing with Gov­ern­ment’s thrust to see more young peo­ple en­gag­ing in mean­ing­ful and pos­i­tive lifestyles.

He was speak­ing at the Open­ing Cer­e­mo­ny of the “Op­er­a­tion Re­cov­ery” Train­ing Camp of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cadet Force’s Po­ten­tial Non[1]Com­mis­sioned Of­fi­cers Cadre, held on April 09, 2022, at the De­fence Force Joint Train­ing Acad­e­my in Corinth, San Fer­nan­do.

Min­is­ter Hinds stat­ed that or­gan­i­sa­tions like the Cadet Force have a ma­jor role to play in the build­ing and shap­ing of our so­ci­ety. He rec­og­nized the val­ue of youth-ori­ent­ed pro­grammes in de­vel­op­ing the na­tion’s youth, say­ing: “We be­lieve that de­viant be­hav­iour amongst our youth can be al­le­vi­at­ed through so­cial in­ter­ven­tion pro­grammes. In this re­gard, we seek to in­vest in the hearts and minds of our young peo­ple, through com­mend­able pro­grammes such as the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cadet Force.”

The Min­is­ter took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to wel­come the Cadet Force back in­to ac­tion, af­ter a two-year hia­tus ow­ing to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. He ex­plained, “With the en­force­ment of Gov­ern­ment’s Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions to man­age and re­strict the spread of COVID-19 in our coun­try, we saw the phys­i­cal clo­sure of schools and lim­i­ta­tions on pub­lic gath­er­ings. These gen­er­at­ed the domi­no ef­fect on our Cadet Units hav­ing to press pause on their train­ing ac­tiv­i­ties.”

Min­is­ter Hinds ex­pressed ex­cite­ment that Trinidad and To­ba­go has reached the turn­around point re­gard­ing COVID-19, lead­ing to the re­lax­ation of our Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions and the re­turn to phys­i­cal class­es. This he said will prompt the con­tin­ued growth of the Cadet Force: “For us at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, these changes sig­nal that the time has come to re-en­er­gize the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cadet Force and its youth train­ing pro­grammes.”

The TTCF Train­ing Camp is be­ing held over a six (6) day pe­ri­od, giv­ing par­tic­i­pat­ing Cadets the op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­vel­op lead­er­ship skills that will al­low them to as­sist in­struc­tors with train­ing and with the man­age­ment of Cadet Force Pla­toons and Com­pa­nies.

The Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty con­tin­ues to pro­vide the nec­es­sary re­sources to the TTTCF in keep­ing with Gov­ern­ment’s agen­da to re­duce delin­quen­cy and crime among our na­tion’s youth pop­u­la­tion and pro­vide a bet­ter qual­i­ty of life for all our cit­i­zens.

Through­out the coun­try, there are more than sev­en­ty-five (75) Cadet Units op­er­at­ing in Sec­ondary Schools, im­pact­ing the lives of over three thou­sand (3,000) young men and women.