A Mil­i­tary-Led Aca­d­e­m­ic Train­ing Pro­gramme (Mi­LAT) for young women will be launched soon. The pro­gramme on­ly caters to male can­di­dates at this time. Ac­cord­ing to the Min­is­ter of Youth and Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Fos­ter Cum­mings the fe­male pro­gramme is nec­es­sary "in or­der for the coun­try to achieve an in­clu­sive and eq­ui­table fu­ture.

The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from the Min­istry of Youth and Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment:

The Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice (MYDNS) recog­nis­es that in or­der for our coun­try to achieve an in­clu­sive and eq­ui­table fu­ture, young men and women need the same ac­cess. As a re­sult, a Fe­male MI­LAT Pro­gramme will be launched very soon.
 
This an­nounce­ment was made by the Ho­n­ourable Fos­ter Cum­mings, Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice as he gave the Fea­ture Ad­dress at ‘Ed­u­cat­ing Youth for Suc­cess: A Fo­rum on the Im­pact of the Mi­LAT Pro­gramme’ on Fri­day 10th June 2022 at the MIC Au­di­to­ri­um, Trinci­ty Busi­ness Park, Ma­coya.                                                                                   
           
Dr. the Ho­n­ourable Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion al­so ex­pressed the need for a fe­male Mi­LAT Pro­gramme stat­ing, “We need more Mi­LAT, par­tic­u­lar­ly Mi­LAT for the girls.” Min­is­ter Dol­ly re­mind­ed at­ten­dees, “In or­der to keep this coun­try on an up­ward tra­jec­to­ry we need to have more young peo­ple that come from hope­less­ness to hope.”
 
Ma­jor David Ben­jamin, Di­rec­tor of the Spe­cial­ized Youth Ser­vice Pro­grammes gave an overview of the Mi­LAT Pro­gramme stat­ing the pro­gramme has been able to, “In­spire and trans­form the cadets, lead­ing them away from an­ti­so­cial be­hav­iors to a life of dis­ci­pline and de­vo­tion to a sense of pur­pose”
 
           Al­so speak­ing at the pro­gramme was the Ho­n­ourable Fitzger­ald Hinds, Min­ster of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Mrs. Cher­ryl-Ann Solomon, Deputy Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary (Ag.), MYDNS as well as past and present trainees of the Mi­LAT Pro­gramme.
 
The Mil­i­tary-Led Aca­d­e­m­ic Train­ing Pro­gramme (Mi­LAT) is a two -year, full-time, so­cial in­ter­ven­tion pro­gramme un­der the purview of the Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice which is de­signed to help young men be­tween 16 and 20 years old. Mi­LAT as­sists these young men through pos­i­tive be­hav­iour mod­i­fi­ca­tion as they pur­sue aca­d­e­m­ic, char­ac­ter and fi­nan­cial de­vel­op­ment in a qua­si-mil­i­tary en­vi­ron­ment. This pro­gramme is in­tend­ed to help young men in at­tain­ing the Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC).
 
The Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice re­mains com­mit­ted to work­ing with key stake­hold­ers to pro­mote youth de­vel­op­ment and en­cour­age civic-mind­ed cit­i­zens to con­tribute to Na­tion­al Ser­vice across Trinidad and To­ba­go.