ACDA IDB Youth Leadership Programme improves lives of rural students

Apr 07, 2009 News

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The ACDA IDB Youth Leadership Programme continues to make an impression on some 30 thirty students and their communities of Agricola, Albouystown and Buxton.
At present, the programme is entering its eighth month. There was the formal six-month period of classes in Leadership and Community Development, Agriculture and the Environment, Entrepreneurship and Health.
Each Young Leader group will have up to 100 young children in their Mentorship programme. With Food For the Poor as a strategic partner, one hundred single parent households will be provided with a food basket every month.
Each of the selected homes will commit to sending their young ones to the Mentorship Programme and guarantee they are in school. The Young Leaders will provide a small sum to Food For the Poor and will be responsible for distribution and management of the process in a transparent and accountable manner.
Over the past months, the students have been exposed to many speakers and companies. These include Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, Dr. Yesu Persaud and his DDL team, Mayor Hamilton Green, Chairman Stanley Ming and the team from Ming’s Products and Services, CEO Major General (Rtd) Joseph Singh and his GT&T team, President Christobel Hughes of the Commemoration Committee, Hamley Case, Canadian High Commissioner, Charles Court, and Dr. Fenton Sands former Mission Director at the US Embassy.
The Institute of Private Enterprise Development also hosted the 30 young leaders as a part of the entrepreneurship education.
Typically, company visits follow a particular format. At IPED, for example, they were exposed to Dr. Yesu Persaud; Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Leslie Chin; Finance Controller Mr. Persaud; Credit Manager Mr. Das; GYBT Manager Mr. Joseph, and Training Manager Mr. Singh representing Ms. Carlotta Walcott.
In this manner, the young leaders were able to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the history and operations of IPED and the entrepreneurial and training opportunities available to them and the general public.
During their GT&T meeting, the Young Leaders were able to also meet Deputy General Manager, Terry Holder, employees Latoya Maraj, Tandekia Percival and Cornel Morris who related their experiences at GT&T as well as the similar environments and challenges that they faced as young people.
Meanwhile, the Young Leaders are meeting with their mentors since their Mentorship Programme was launched in November with GT&T, which has provided two mentors, Ms. Debbie Boodie and Ms. Rhonda Johnson.
Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, Chief-of-Staff, Commodore Best, Sonya Reece, Clinton Urling, Shaun Caleb, Michelle Branker, Hamley Case, Cecil Josiah, Stanley Ming and others are also mentors.
Mentors are still being sought within Guyana and soon mentors will be sourced from the USA, the United Kingdom and Canada.
Currently, the students are involved in their Community Change projects. Each of the three groups has been registered as Friendly Society NGOs. This is in keeping with their training to become servant leaders and more community centered. Each group has launched a Mentorship Program in their respective communities.
Agricola, for example, launched its programme some six weeks ago and was supported by ACDA, the Guyana Defence Force, the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports and several organisations in the community.
Albouystown launched theirs with the presence of Minister Manzoor Nadir and Mayor Hamilton Green, both previous residents of Albouystown.
The goals of the Mentorship programme are to provide youth in our communities with various life skills and discipline training, so they will impart the knowledge in others to bring about community development. It also serves to empower members of the community to become economically self-sufficient.
The project also seeks to establish and operate a fully equipped community resource center with a trained staff, facilitate the establishment of businesses in the community, and develop and implement programmes to improve the health and well being of the members of the community.
¨It is also geared at alerting the community about the dangers of STIs and the way in which its spread can be halted, developing and implementing programs for the benefit of young people in the community, and developing cultural awareness in our community as means of improving self image and self esteem.
It is also designed to eradicate illiteracy in our community, provide recreation facilities for social development and to train, motivate and mobilize the young people for positive change.
The Community Change Project for the Young Leaders of Albouystown is to rehabilitate the Faith of God Church to be their home base in the community.
This Church has not been used since early 1990 and Pastor Greaves was very kind in offering it as a meeting place.

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