Ryan Ba­choo

One hun­dred and six­ty-eight (168) young peo­ple were award­ed cer­tifi­cates for the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of Lev­el 1 of the Youth Agri­cul­tur­al Home­stead Pro­gramme as the Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice (MYDNS) host­ed its Grad­u­a­tion Cer­e­mo­ny for the first co­hort of the Youth Agri­cul­tur­al Home­stead Pro­gramme on Tues­day.

In de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress, Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice, Fos­ter Cum­mings said, “YAHP was de­vel­oped to cre­ate greater ac­cess to lo­cal­ly grown and pro­duced healthy food. You, grad­uands, will help Trin­bag­o­ni­ans to have health­i­er di­ets and a more sus­tain­able lifestyle. Our na­tion’s fu­ture, our com­fort, sta­bil­i­ty and se­cu­ri­ty de­pend on your ef­forts."

Niki­ta Legall in her vale­dic­to­ry ad­dress em­pha­sised her grat­i­tude and pride in her fel­low grad­u­ates. “If you want to go fast go alone and if you want to go far to­geth­er” as she quot­ed an old African proverb, she re­mind­ed them of the pow­er of the com­mu­ni­ty they de­vel­oped and the im­por­tance of uni­ty.

The Pro­gramme al­so in­clud­ed a spe­cial seg­ment for prizes in the fol­low­ing ar­eas:

· Vale­dic­to­ri­ans: Je­la­ja John­son and Niki­ta Legall

· Top Stu­dent for Live­stock Tech­nol­o­gy 1 &2: Shane Ali

· Top stu­dent for Crop Tech­nol­o­gy 1 and 2: Shane Ali

· Top stu­dents in Agro-pro­cess­ing and Agro- Com­mod­i­ty Uti­liza­tion: Kay­la Cox

· Top stu­dents in In­tro­duc­tion to Farm Man­age­ment: Shan­non Cal­len­der and An­gel Glas­gow

· Lead­er­ship Award: Mwale Hen­ry

· En­tre­pre­neur­ship Award: Mark Bo­neo

· Ex­cel­lence in Tech­nol­o­gy Award: Si­mone Gayadeen

· Civic- mind­ed­ness Award: Ak­i­lah Hugh­es-Pan­tin