Many cit­i­zens con­tin­ue to as­sist youth in dis­cern­ing their in­ter­ests and see­ing how these in­ter­ests can ben­e­fit them and oth­ers. There are count­less young change­mak­ers in our com­mu­ni­ties whose tal­ents re­main hid­den be­cause we have not cre­at­ed safe spaces/judge­ment-free zones in which they can ex­plore their in­ter­ests/dreams.

In T&T we are so fo­cused on aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions, that we of­ten fail to ex­pose youth ef­fec­tive­ly to the di­verse forms of in­tel­li­gence, in­clud­ing Cre­ative In­tel­li­gence (in­no­v­a­tive think­ing and artis­tic ex­pres­sion).

As a for­mer head of Qual­i­ty As­sur­ance in Ed­u­ca­tion in a Lon­don Bor­ough, I al­ways urged teach­ers to go be­yond telling stu­dents to “Dream big,” but to en­cour­age them to re­flect on how they can achieve their goals. What knowl­edge, skills, and abil­i­ties will they need?  

Best prac­tice in­cludes re­cruit­ing the sup­port of role mod­els and men­tors, par­tic­u­lar­ly those who have the same in­ter­ests, and where nec­es­sary, se­cur­ing in­tern­ships/ap­pren­tice­ships and pro­vid­ing con­crete op­por­tu­ni­ties for stu­dents to bridge the gap be­tween the­o­ry and prac­tice.

I thought of this im­por­tant process re­cent­ly when I met a re­mark­able young woman, Ani­ka Plow­den-Corentin. We had ar­rived ear­ly for a Hu­man­i­tar­i­an Meet­ing, or­gan­ised by the In­ter­na­tion­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Mi­gra­tion (IOM). We used the op­por­tu­ni­ty to get to know each oth­er. Ani­ka is the founder and cre­ative di­rec­tor of Cho­sen Hands, “an im­pact­ful art and well­ness pro­gramme that em­pow­ers at-risk youth.”

She shared with me her jour­ney to­wards find­ing pur­pose through art. She holds a BSc in So­ci­ol­o­gy with Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment, an MSc in So­ci­ol­o­gy from UWI, and an MBA from Hen­ley Busi­ness School. Here are ex­tracts from our dis­cus­sion:

“De­spite hav­ing my qual­i­fi­ca­tions, I was nav­i­gat­ing an emo­tion­al drought, un­cer­tain of my path. I felt com­pelled to use what I had, even if it didn’t seem like much. So, I dust­ed off my artis­tic gift and let it lead me. The jour­ney was not straight­for­ward, but I knew it would be im­pact­ful. The name Cho­sen Hands came to me dur­ing one of these re­flec­tive mo­ments, a re­minder of be­ing “cho­sen” and “hand­picked” by God. More im­por­tant­ly, I came to re­alise that those I in­ter­act­ed with were spe­cial and cho­sen.

One day, a friend asked if I would run an art work­shop for girls in a home. At the time, I was bal­anc­ing part-time lec­tur­ing and art projects, re­ly­ing on my hus­band’s sup­port. My sup­plies were lim­it­ed, yet some­thing in­side urged me to go. I showed up with just a Bris­tol board, some old paint, and pen­cils from home.

That first work­shop was trans­for­ma­tive. We paint­ed a tree with swirls of colour and wrote our dreams on pa­per leaves. As I lis­tened to the girls share their dreams and fears, it be­came clear that this was more than a one-time ses­sion. Their sto­ries broke me open, and that day, Cho­sen Hands tru­ly be­gan. I reached out to friends for help, and they ral­lied around, sup­ply­ing paint, men­tor­ship, and en­cour­age­ment. To­geth­er, we built a com­mu­ni­ty—an army of hearts and hands com­mit­ted to shar­ing hope through art.

Since then, Cho­sen Hands has evolved in­to a space of heal­ing, growth, and con­nec­tion. We are a vir­tu­al col­lec­tive of artists and com­pas­sion­ate in­di­vid­u­als, unit­ed by our ded­i­ca­tion to us­ing art, in­no­va­tion, and cre­ativ­i­ty as keys to un­lock doors of hope and in­spi­ra­tion. With­out a phys­i­cal build­ing, we go wher­ev­er there’s a need—bring­ing trans­for­ma­tive art ex­pe­ri­ences to youths, com­mu­ni­ties, and or­gan­i­sa­tions. We have ex­pand­ed to of­fer Paint and In­spire Work­shops, em­pow­er­ing lead­ers to em­brace cre­ativ­i­ty and in­no­va­tion through dy­nam­ic group ses­sions. Join us in spark­ing pos­i­tive change; to­geth­er, we can reach even more hearts and minds.

This is a sto­ry of hope, re­silience, and com­mu­ni­ty, re­mind­ing us that even the small­est acts can have a pro­found im­pact. My moth­er used to say, “You have the abil­i­ty to do good or to do bad; it’s your choice.”

Choose good, I found that our gifts, how­ev­er small, are meant to be shared. This is a sto­ry about obe­di­ence, hu­mil­i­ty, and re­silience. It’s about a deep be­lief that there are still good peo­ple in the world, and when we come to­geth­er, we can cre­ate pow­er­ful change. Art for so­cial change. Through Cho­sen Hands, I hope to pass on that spir­it of hope, com­pas­sion, and the courage to use what­ev­er is in your hands to make a dif­fer­ence” (Cho­sen­hand­stt@gmail.com).

Ani­ka is an alum­na of the In­ter­na­tion­al Vis­i­tor Lead­er­ship Pro­gram (IVLP) and a 2024 re­cip­i­ent of the IVLP Im­pact Awards for her project 

In­spire Im­pact: Art for So­cial Change Ini­tia­tive.