Blink | bmo­bile and the We Say "YES!!!" (WSY) or­gan­i­sa­tion joined the rest of the world in ob­serv­ing World Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion and In­for­ma­tion So­ci­ety Day (WTISD), recog­nised an­nu­al­ly on May 17.

An av­er­age of 130 chil­dren and their par­ents from East Port-of-Spain have ben­e­fit­ted through a part­ner­ship by blink | bmo­bile and WSY–an NGO that fo­cus­es on youth en­tre­pre­neur­ship, self-em­pow­er­ment and par­ent em­pow­er­ment, a re­lease said.

The pro­gramme, which was start­ed in 2013, tar­gets chil­dren five to 16 years. It pro­vides men­tor­ship, In­for­ma­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Tech­nol­o­gy (ICT), en­tre­pre­neur­ship, and ed­u­ca­tion­al class­es on Sat­ur­days, at the Roytec, Char­lotte Street, build­ing.

Founder, Nichola Har­vey-Mitchell said, "The WSY pro­gramme was start­ed as a re­sponse to the in­crease in...crime in these com­mu­ni­ties and a need to cre­ate more suc­cess sto­ries out of these ar­eas. The pro­gramme teach­es the chil­dren...to be self-sup­port­ing by tap­ping in­to their en­tre­pre­neur­ial abil­i­ties, tal­ent and po­ten­tial, and to give back to their com­mu­ni­ty."

Camille Camp­bell, TSTT's chief mar­ket­ing of­fi­cer said, "Re­search has shown that ICT has a sig­nif­i­cant and pos­i­tive im­pact on stu­dent achieve­ment. The WSY ini­tia­tive falls with­in the scope of blink | bmo­bile ob­jec­tives which is to con­tribute to the pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ment of the na­tion's youth through ed­u­ca­tion, sport, cul­ture and health."

Make­si Fran­cis is a WSY grad­u­ate and won a schol­ar­ship from the pro­gramme which will be used to as­sist with his uni­ver­si­ty ex­pens­es in Sep­tem­ber. The 18-year-old Laven­tille res­i­dent is now a WSY board mem­ber and vol­un­teer, and high­ly rec­om­mends WSY.

Kim­ber­ly Buck­mire from Port-of-Spain has four chil­dren in the pro­gramme. She said her 12-year-old son Jean-Marc was the qui­et one in the fam­i­ly but since at­tend­ing WSY he is ad­just­ing and be­com­ing more in­ter­ac­tive with his peers.

Thank­ing blink | bmo­bile for their con­tin­ued sup­port Har­vey-Mitchell not­ed, "Our pro­gramme saves lives be­cause it's a way of giv­ing the kids pos­i­tive op­por­tu­ni­ties to be­come pos­i­tive cit­i­zens. I am grate­ful to blink | bmo­bile for their con­tin­ued spon­sor­ship, as well as for the con­tri­bu­tion of their staff who teach se­lect mod­ules and men­tor the chil­dren."

The 2016 WTISD theme is, ICT En­tre­pre­neur­ship for So­cial Im­pact. The theme high­lights the im­por­tant role ICT en­tre­pre­neurs, start-ups, and small to medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es play in the sus­tain­able growth of economies. Blink | bmo­bile and WSY en­cour­age all cit­i­zens to ex­plore the world of ICT and the many pos­si­bil­i­ties it brings.