Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Months af­ter grad­u­at­ing from the Mil­i­tary-Led Aca­d­e­m­ic Train­ing Pro­gramme (Mi­LAT), 20-year-old Chris­t­ian Chan­dree, from Four Roads, Tamana, is fac­ing dif­fi­cul­ties find­ing em­ploy­ment.

Chan­dree, who ex­celled dur­ing the Mi­LAT pro­gramme, is al­so grap­pling with the dev­as­tat­ing loss of his moth­er, who died last De­cem­ber.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Chan­dree ex­plained, “Well, I’m ac­tu­al­ly con­cerned for my­self and my peers about what comes next. We were suc­cess­ful, yes, but what’s the next step for us? We may have goals and dreams, but how are we go­ing to ac­com­plish them? What op­por­tu­ni­ties are there for us to pur­sue in or­der to achieve those things? That’s the con­cern I have for my­self and my peers.”

He said the death of his moth­er from can­cer was even more heart-wrench­ing.

“It hasn’t made things any eas­i­er, ob­vi­ous­ly,” he said.

“It’s dif­fi­cult, es­pe­cial­ly at a young age, to ex­pe­ri­ence such a loss. It left me con­fused, un­sure of where to look, where to turn, what to do, or what not to do. I am an adult and aware of right and wrong, but there’s just cer­tain ad­vice a moth­er can give that you can’t fig­ure out on your own.”

So far, Chan­dree has been at­tend­ing job in­ter­views across the coun­try, and had an in­ter­view with a lo­cal bank just hours be­fore he spoke to Guardian Me­dia.

He at­tained six CSEC pass­es dur­ing the Mi­LAT pro­gramme.

“We’ve changed a lot and achieved a lot. Com­ing back in­to the world, we now see the true val­ue of what was taught to us in the pro­gramme. With­out that ex­pe­ri­ence, I think I would’ve seen things in a sim­ple, one-di­men­sion­al way, but now my eyes have been opened, and I can see things in full colour, rather than just in black and white,” he said.

Chan­dree added that he did not feel ne­glect­ed.

He said, “I wouldn’t say we’re ne­glect­ed, but it feels like we’re cry­ing out to deaf ears, more or less. It’s not that we’re be­ing ig­nored en­tire­ly, but it feels like they’re just not pay­ing at­ten­tion to us. I don’t know if it’s a choice or if they sim­ply don’t no­tice, but they’re not look­ing our way.”

The 20-year-old’s sto­ry start­ed when his moth­er be­gan hav­ing is­sues with his be­hav­iour, and she asked for as­sis­tance from the Com­mu­ni­ty Polic­ing Unit of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and then the Fa­ther’s As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T, who helped him get in­to the Mi­LAT pro­gramme.

“We need op­por­tu­ni­ties in place for us af­ter the pro­gramme. I’m not ask­ing to be spoon-fed, but rather for the chance to learn and then be giv­en the right tools to suc­ceed. I’m not say­ing you have to hand us every­thing, but pro­vide us with sol­id av­enues to pur­sue af­ter achiev­ing all these great things. We can’t just achieve and then re­turn to so­ci­ety as if noth­ing has changed,” Chan­dree said.

“We can’t just achieve and then walk amongst every­one else as if noth­ing has changed. We were giv­en a spe­cif­ic type of train­ing and a unique vi­sion to see things in so­ci­ety. Now, give us the op­por­tu­ni­ty to make that vi­sion a re­al­i­ty.”

With lim­it­ed op­tions and the risk of be­com­ing an­oth­er sta­tis­tic, Chandee has turned to the TTPS Com­mu­ni­ty Polic­ing Unit and the Fa­ther’s As­so­ci­a­tion, the same or­gan­i­sa­tions that ini­tial­ly helped him en­rol in the Mi­LAT pro­gramme.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Sgt Jacey Small, of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mu­ni­ty Unit for Cen­tral, re­flect­ed on his first en­counter with Chan­dree and ex­pressed pride in how far he had come.

He said, “If I had my way, I’d em­ploy him in the morn­ing. He re­al­ly stands out. When he first reached out to my lot, he was just a bit late for the ap­pli­ca­tion dead­line, but he missed it by on­ly a small mar­gin.”

Sgt Small con­tin­ued, “I re­al­ly pray that some­thing works out for him soon. He de­serves it. When I dealt with him per­son­al­ly, I felt that be­ing harsh wasn’t the right ap­proach. I’m go­ing to talk to him and find out what’s go­ing on. We even had to sub­mit a child in need of su­per­vi­sion ap­pli­ca­tion to the Chil­dren’s Court. Thank­ful­ly, the Chil­dren’s Court doesn’t take a puni­tive ap­proach when deal­ing with ju­ve­niles.”

Chan­dree led the Mi­LAT pro­gramme in the In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade and ex­celled in many ar­eas.

Fa­ther’s As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Rhon­dall Fee­les, ac­knowl­edged that it was Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young who as­sist­ed Chan­dree.

“I must ad­mit, when Sergeant Small reached out to us, it was late. I con­tact­ed Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and told him about a par­tic­u­lar young man who re­al­ly need­ed the op­por­tu­ni­ty. I be­lieved if he got in, it would make a dif­fer­ence. It pleas­es me to see that he was able to join, even af­ter the dead­line, and be­came the top cadet. Imag­ine if he hadn’t been giv­en that chance,” he said.

Fee­les be­lieves Gov­ern­ment should al­so widen the catch­ment for youths in T&T.

He said, “The catch­ment process and age need to be re­vis­it­ed. At 16, which is the catch­ment age for Mi­LAT and most of these pro­grammes, we’re al­ready see­ing young men get­ting mur­dered at 15 and be­com­ing shoot­ers at 16. We’re miss­ing the ages of 11 and 12, where we should be fo­cus­ing on reach­ing and re­form­ing these youth be­fore they fall in­to the wrong paths.”