YAP providing second chance for youths

Vulnerable youth who may have fallen through the cracks now have a second chance at getting their lives on track through the Youth Assistance Programme (YAP).

Volunteer director of Marion House Jeanie Ollivierre, in an interview on Tuesday, told SEARCHLIGHT that their aim through YAP is to provide susceptible youth with skills that essentially would make them employable.{{more}}

“…it’s a one-year full-time programme, where we cater for the youth on the block and the unemployed youth whose parents live below the poverty line, who probably have fallen through the cracks. They either dropped out of secondary school or some might have completed their CSEC exams, but they don’t have their Maths and English. Some have completed their CSEC and have Maths and English, but they do not have a skill that would make them employable.”

Ollivierre pointed out that helping the youth is the main reason Marion House was started in 1989.

The programme, which runs for one year, has a six-month in-class training period and a six-month attachment period in the field which they have chosen.

During the first six months, students are taken through a youth development programme, which deals with self-esteem and psychosocial problems.

“They do six months of youth development, where we help to build their self-esteem, identify issues that they have, whether it is at their home or within the community and see how we can work on it, if we find that there are psychosocial issues…we nip it in the bud and we provide counselling for the youth and so on,” Ollivierre disclosed.

The students are also required to take part in community service projects while taking part in the programme, in order to graduate, according to Ollivierre.

“Part of the criteria for graduating is that they do community work in the community that they come from; they have to identify a mentor in their community who will be more or less the link between Marion House and the community to ensure and to follow up. The mentor has to be somebody that they respect, to follow up and ensure that they are performing their community service…”

The programme caters for youth between the ages of 15 and 25, living between the Glen and Campden Park areas; however, she noted that they do sometimes get persons from as far as Layou and Byera.

Upon graduating, students are given a kit to help them in the field which they have chosen.

Ollivierre also stated that while most of the youth who have gone through the programme are currently employed, others are given skills so that they may become self-employed.

“Well, so far we have 60 per cent; there are six of them that are still out and we hope that that will bring it up to our 80 per cent.

“That skill is supposed to be able to sustain them whether they are employed by the trainer to whom they were attached or they use their skills that they would have learnt to gain employment,” she continued.

The students can choose from 14 fields, some of which are: plumbing, welding, cosmetology, housekeeping, bartending, cook/chef, tapestry, hairdressing and waitressing.

The volunteer director also told SEARCHLIGHT that they are seeking more training assistance from the corporate sector.

“We always asking the corporate sector not just to partner with us in term of providing the training…for the youth, but also in terms of contributing, because we are moulding these youths for the world of work and it is the corporate sector that will employ them.”

The programme is set to commence on February 1 and will cater for 30 youths. (CM)