Lee An­na Ma­haraj

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.