The African Cultural and Development Association (ACDA) is seeking 30 youth from Agricola, Albouystown and Buxton for a 12-month intensive programme aimed at improving their chances to succeed.
In a press release ACDA said the programme, titled ‘Improving the skill set of at-risk Afro-descendant youth from disadvantaged communities” is designed to empower them educationally, culturally, economically, politically and socially. Five men and five women will be chosen from each community. Three group leaders, one from each community, and five subject matter experts will also be hired to oversee the programme.
The course will start with a three-day conference beginning in the last week of July and will also include participation from parents, guardians and potential mentors.
The three-dimensional programme will improve the depth and accessibility to youth; focus on the potential of ‘at risk’ youth and improve the capacity and skills of the youths and their communities in order to sustain community-driven efforts to enhance welfare.
It will be implemented by a group of nine elders led by Violet Jean-Baptiste and including Egerton Cooke.
ACDA said the programme is another step in its ongoing quest to find solutions to problems facing youth.
It said it is known that youth are challenged by problems relating to their “economic participation, employability, susceptibility to the derivatives of narco-trafficking and vulnerability due to high incidences of teenage pregnancy, functional illiteracy and HIV/AIDS.” It said too Afro-Guyanese youth in particular experience problems such as stigma and victimization, unequal and limited access to resources and opportunities and youth and youth violence.
The programme’s objective is to stem the exclusion that these experiences cause by providing skills, knowledge and access to business and social networks to youth from the said communities. On completion the youths should be equipped to start their own businesses, become employable and become leaders in their communities and the nation.
At the end of the period selected young people will receive certificates in five areas: leadership and inter-community development, entrepreneurship and small business development, agriculture and environmental management, healthy living and healthy lifestyles and media and communications.
The students will also be exposed to literature, dance, African culture, creativity and drumming, karate, life skills, drama and spoken words, spirituality and life lessons.
ACDA executive Eric Phillips who designed the programme was quoted in the release as saying that the 30 students will come out of the experience with 12 outcomes: become “servant” leaders, become better community leaders and activists, create a `big brother/big sister’ programme in their community, develop partnerships with various business groups and companies, become members of an NGO, develop a youth programme with the army or police, develop a partnership with an international agency, construct a literacy programme in their community, have a monthly programme visiting Elders in their community, visiting and adopting the Museum of African Heritage and hosting a monthly community lecture/film series”.
ACDA said the course took over 14 months to come to fruition. It is supported by the Social Inclusion Fund of the Inter-American Develop-ment Bank.
Terms of reference for the programme are available from ACDA on Thomas Lands.
