Sev­er­al male stu­dents from sec­ondary schools in north Trinidad re­cent­ly had a unique op­por­tu­ni­ty to get ad­vice, en­cour­age­ment, and up­lift­ment, as part of In­ter­na­tion­al Men’s Day ob­ser­vances.

On Fri­day (No­vem­ber 17), the Gen­der and Child Af­fairs Di­vi­sion host­ed a Young Men’s Sem­i­nar at its St. Clair Of­fice, in com­mem­o­ra­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Men’s Day. The in­ter­na­tion­al theme for this year’s com­mem­o­ra­tion is ‘Ze­ro Male Sui­cide’, with the na­tion­al theme be­ing ‘En­cour­ag­ing healthy liv­ing among Men and Boys’.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the Gen­der Af­fairs Di­vi­sion, the event brought to­geth­er male stu­dents from var­i­ous sec­ondary schools in­clud­ing Bel­mont Sec­ondary School, Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege, Mor­vant/Laven­tille Sec­ondary School, St. Fran­cis Boys Col­lege, and Tran­quil­li­ty Sec­ondary School.

“The Sem­i­nar aimed to en­cour­age young males to prac­tice healthy and re­spon­si­ble be­hav­iours,” the re­lease said. 

The dis­cus­sions with the young male stu­dents were mod­er­at­ed by med­ical so­cial work­ers, psy­chol­o­gists, and in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy spe­cial­ists, and cov­ered sev­er­al top­ics in­clud­ing health­ily re­la­tion­ships, cy­ber health, and self-care—par­tic­u­lar­ly men­tal health.”

Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Gen­der and Child Af­fairs, Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy, took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­cour­age the young men to be open to ask­ing for as­sis­tance and ac­cept­ing ser­vices for their well-be­ing, as healthy and pro­duc­tive con­trib­u­tors to so­ci­ety.