Gail Alexan­der

SOS to cor­po­rate T&T!

There’s an op­por­tu­ni­ty to as­sist in trans­form­ing a young per­son’s life and, by ex­ten­sion, the com­mu­ni­ty around them via the St James Po­lice Youth Club.

The club is now ap­peal­ing to busi­ness­es and cham­bers to join the ef­fort to spur such pos­i­tive changes for all.

St James Youth Club founder and head, act­ing cor­po­ral Der­rick Shar­bod­ie, launched the ap­peal as the club marks its 30th an­niver­sary at a time when cer­tain is­sues have re­cent­ly af­fect­ed its abil­i­ty to as­sist its young charges.

The club, found­ed in No­vem­ber 1992, pro­vides as­sis­tance and shel­ter for youths aged five to 19 and al­so has a res­i­den­tial pro­gramme for six young men who were dis­placed. It’s been de­scribed as pro­vid­ing an al­ter­na­tive for youths through sport, ed­u­ca­tion, agri­cul­ture, com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice and oth­er ways.

“The St James Po­lice Youth Club isn’t just a cen­tre, it’s home to many and some­times a safe haven,” Shar­bod­ie said yes­ter­day.

“Some peo­ple tell us they wish us the best. But a true ‘best wish’ for these young peo­ple, for whom very small things can make a big dif­fer­ence in their life, their fam­i­ly’s and ob­vi­ous­ly their com­mu­ni­ty’s al­so, is by lend­ing them a hand in some way,” he added

Shar­bod­ie said over the years, the club’s work has shown an 85 per cent suc­cess rate. He said suc­cess­ful youth club alum­ni in­clud­ed Morn­ing Brew host/me­dia per­son­al­i­ty “JW” (Ja­son Williams), Jah Melody and gospel singer Jerome Nurse.

“We track many of our alum­ni who are in the army and sim­i­lar ar­eas and ask them to share with the cen­tre’s par­tic­i­pants what they’ve learned. We get large re­spons­es to that,” he added.

Shar­bod­ie said the club needs more ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fi­cers for its Diego Mar­tin-based of­fice and up to re­cent­ly, was seek­ing a wash­ing ma­chine af­ter thieves stole the one they had. Shar­bod­ie said Courts had of­fered to as­sist with the ma­chine.

The club’s oth­er big chal­lenge is that the Nis­san bus which trans­ports the youths to the Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty (CDA) plot where they’re in­volved in agri­cul­ture is down.

“The bus is cru­cial since it’s used to trans­port them safe­ly to and from Ch­aguara­mas. Many have shown an in­ter­est in agri­cul­ture and there are oth­er trans­port needs al­so. But the agri­cul­tur­al pro­gramme was shelved as the bus wasn’t work­ing,” he said.

Nivholas Singh, of the Cyber Division Unit of The TTPS, addresses members of the club

Police Youth Club St James

Yes­ter­day, while speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Shar­bod­ie was vis­it­ed by Kervin An­toine and Clin­ton Mo­hammed, of the Diego Mar­tin/Pe­tit Val­ley As­so­ci­a­tion, who vol­un­teered ser­vices to as­sist in trans­port­ing youths to the agri­cul­tur­al plot and oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties un­til the bus is fixed.

“That will help, so we’re hop­ing in the in­ter­im the bus can be rec­ti­fied,” Shar­bod­ie added.

The club is al­so keep­ing its fin­gers crossed for as­sis­tance with dou­ble-deck­er beds for the six youths who are in the club’s res­i­den­tial pro­gramme.

And with the Christ­mas sea­son ahead, Shar­bod­ie hopes that busi­ness­es give em­ploy­ment, even part-time, to those at the cen­tre who are aged 16 to 18.

“Not on­ly so, they can con­tribute some­thing to their fam­i­ly and ex­pand their un­der­stand­ing of that pos­i­tive sense of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, but they may al­so learn some­thing and give them a wider sense of what they can achieve. Every­one has po­ten­tial, some just need a lit­tle help to find their stream,” he said.

The club will soon launch a new ini­tia­tive, “My Broth­er’s Keep­er,” aimed at part­ner­ing and trans­form­ing youths one at a time.

Shar­bod­ie added, “One of the great­est cre­dos is to give qual­i­ty of life in ser­vice to oth­ers, in­clud­ing the less for­tu­nate. We’ve seen this in re­al-time. God bless you.”

The St James Po­lice Youth Club can be con­tact­ed at 296-1218 and 632-6084.