Grammar School Young  Leaders – making significant impact on schools, communities
News
February 15, 2013

Grammar School Young Leaders – making significant impact on schools, communities

Since our launch on January 14, 2013, the St Vincent Grammar School Young Leaders have had a series of activities that have made a significant impact on various persons, institutions, schools and communities.{{more}}

Among these was our visit to five different elderly homes across SVG. Fruit baskets, as well as small tokens of appreciation were distributed. The homes visited include: the Thompson Home, the Lewis Punnett Home, the Garden of Eden and the Golden Years centres, located at Black Point and Pembroke. This part of the project deals with our attempt to change the lack of visitation for persons who have been marginalized, not only by society, but by their own families.
 
These visits were meant to give us, the young people involved, an acceptance for persons in less favourable positions than ourselves and to volunteer service where it is needed. It was indeed a great and fulfilling experience for all involved, young and old alike, and both parties had a great time, as expressed in this comment from one of our members. Jevon Ollivierre said: “I really enjoyed myself at the Thompson Home. Being in your teens, it’s like the world is moving fast and our senior citizens are forgotten. This experience has boosted my morale towards visiting our patriots.”

After this momentous visit to the homes mentioned above, there was another series of visits made by the St Vincent Grammar School Young Leaders that rivaled the previous visit in everything, from learning new things to having lots of fun.

We visited 14 primary schools across the nation to spread yet another message of change. This time, we wanted to educate the young people in primary schools about bullying and its effect. The primary schools which received these words of wisdom were: Layou Government School, Buccament Government School, Lowmans Leeward Anglican School, C.W. Prescod Primary School, Lodge Village Government School, Bequia Government School, Sandy Bay Government School, Kingstown Preparatory School, Georgetown Government School, Marriqua Government School, Calder Primary School, Belair Government School, Calliqua Anglican School, Kingstown Anglican School, and St. Mary’s Roman Catholic School.
 
The children were very eager to answer questions and our message seemed to be well received. Not only was this a great experience for the primary school children, but it taught us how to interact with persons on the level they are at.

We also had two fund raising activities which included a bake sale on Saturday, January 19, 2013 and February 9, 2013. We had a games day which was thematically called “Games for Change” on Friday, January 25, 2013 and another on Thursday, February 7, 2013. We also had a dance-off on Friday, February 8, 2013.

Our group also visited the Liberty Lodge Boys’ Training Centre on January 19, 2013. Our aim was to encourage them to make the most of their situation. There was also a fun interactive session, where we played football and listened to modern music.

To top it all off, on February 2, the group visited two communities in St Vincent, which have developed a bad reputation. The communities visited were Redemption Sharpes and Ottley Hall and the visit was meant to find out why the people from the community thought it had developed a bad reputation and what they think we can do to change the way the community is. Some persons thought that the “young people” are the reason for the crime and violence in the communities. Those persons believe that the only way to change this is to provide a continuous flow of activities that the young persons will be able to participate in.

[Contributed by the St Vincent Grammar School Young Leaders 2013]