leeanna.maharaj@guardian.co.tt
More than 20 schools with indiscipline and academic challenges will benefit from the Ministry of Youth Development and National Service’s 40 Under 40 initiative that begins today.
A roving caravan will visit a different school each week to host Breakfast and Discussions. Speakers will include entrepreneurs, entertainers, sportsmen, and fashion designers, who will focus on the personal and professional development of young people.
At the launch yesterday at Stollmeyer’s Castle, Queen’s Park West, Youth Development Minister Foster Cummings said he hopes young people will be positively influenced through the initiative.
“The objective is creating a new citizen, a new type of citizen who, of course, is interested in national development, who is interested in self-development, is interested in community and has a purpose in life, a plan,” he said.
“You cannot make it alone. This life is about sharing experiences. You don’t have to make all the mistakes that your parents made. You don’t have to do some of the things they may have gone through.”
Minister of Education Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly said the 26 schools involved in the programme have been targeted for remedial education.
“These are schools where we have a lot of indiscipline issues, these are schools where students come out, most of them, without any qualifications upon which they can build to support themselves,” she said.
The caravan’s first stop is El Dorado East Secondary School.
Yesterday’s launch was attended by Minister of Communications in the Office of the Prime Minister Symon de Nobriga, Minister with responsibility for Gender and Child Affairs Ayanna Webster-Roy, Toco/Sangre Grande MP Roger Monroe and Port-of-Spain South MP Keith Scotland.