 Good day and welcome to Issues and Answers, a production of the Government Information Service. I am your host for today, Jack Henson Compton. Today we are here with the Director of Youth in the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports, Miss Mary Wilfred, as well as two youth workers. That's Miss Kizaya St. Bryce and Miss Shilma Charles. And we want to talk a little bit about the program called the Youth Workers Program. Welcome to the program ladies. Thank you. Thank you very much. Now Miss Wilfred, you're no stranger to the program, but before we get started to the meat of the matter, I want you to just talk about the role of the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports for persons who may not already know. Okay, so the role of the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports is really to implement policies, programs and activities that will benefit the young people of St. Lucia, specifically those engaged in sports and those engaged in youth development. So we seek to engage young people throughout the communities, through clubs, through organizations, through different agencies in order to do that because as a Ministry on our own, we're unable to meet all the young people through our own programming. So this is basically what we're all about and that is to bring about a more sustainable and a more prosperous nation. Now, we want to talk about the Youth Workers Program. So before I get to the other two young ladies, just tell us a little bit about what the Youth Workers Program is, a little bit of its history and why it came about. The Youth Workers Program started in 2018 and that came under the heels of a Commonwealth Youth Ministers' Meeting that was held sometime in 2017 or thereabouts and the Commonwealth advocated for young people to be engaged in youth work. They admitted that historically youth work had been voluntary but they were now advocating for paid youth work because youth work had now become an academic discipline. It was practiced, it was premised on theory and it was practiced through the theoretical principles of youth work. So they had now engaged Ministers of Youth throughout the Commonwealth and shared the idea and based on what we wanted to see in youth development in St. Lucia we felt that this idea would offer us a lot of benefits in that we can now do youth work in a very practical and in a small geographic region that can impact young people. So these young people who were already volunteers in their communities and passionate about seeing things done about young people came in and said, yes we are available, we want to do this because we've already been doing it and we think that we have the skills, we have some of the competencies. Of course we've more training that we can offer the programs and offer some of the activities that are needed to help connect young people in school, out of school, young people in clubs, out of clubs so that we can have more social cohesion in our communities. So this next question is for you. Shuman, Ms. Charles, what do you consider your role as a youth worker? My role as a youth worker is basically to help push the mandate of the ministry. In our communities we are expected to help work with young people, help develop them, help connect them to resources, help build opportunities for young persons in the community. Your focus is very important in the various communities because we have young people who are unattached and so our role is to, like I said, connect them, help build them up, help expose them to the different opportunities. Well, this question is really for the two of you. What regions do you both work in? I am the youth worker for U-Fort South and by U-Fort South I would specify Contourment, La Rituals, Des Bois, Des Mons, La Tunis, City Heights, Black Bay, U-Fort Town. That's quite a lot. Well, I'm responsible for Castres Central as well as Castres North. So from Castres Central, Grass Street, CDC and the area surrounding and also Castres North that's La Claree, Bise, Mondino, Papatat, those areas. Do you find that a little overwhelming because these are so many parts of the country that we're talking about. Well, once you understand your community, once you've done your assessment, you connect with the young people, it may seem a lot to you but it's for South for me. Would either of you consider that maybe you need more youth workers to come and volunteer? Yes, of course, yes. In my zone because Castres Central and Castres North it seems fairly close but then the dynamics of these two communities are so fast that it seems like two totally different communities. So there's so many young people in this area so we try to do as much to impact all of them but since it's such a wide range, the more assistance given, the better, the more young people we can impact. Do you have something you want to say? And while we're youth workers, it's just the two of us, there are other youth workers who may face challenges. Different communities come to different topographies and when you look at shows there of how large shows there is, it is difficult for one youth worker to be able to reach out to all corners and when it comes to mobilizing young people, it can be a challenge. So yes, there isn't a need for more youth workers. So I'll get to some of what you said a little bit. Ms. Wilfred, how would you, how does someone get into youth work or how would you encourage persons to get into it? Okay, so less than 10 years ago, subject to correction, because youth work began emerging, it began, it was an emerging academic discipline, young people began to take advantage of courses that were offered by various organizations. I remember in the 90s, late 80s, 90s, the Commonwealth Youth Center, see why it was in Gaian at the time and they were offering diplomas in youth development and so far now the University of the West Indies open campus, they were offering a degree in youth development and many of our young people have been or are taking advantage, I believe Shoma is currently a student who's pursuing youth development as a major and sometimes they have minors to it. So these young people, they've done a bit of that work, they have some level of certification and they would indicate their interest in joining the program because of their certification, their volunteerism and just a passion to see their community transform for the better. So if they are interested, they can either come into the ministry or they can call us at 468-4991 as to speak to the director and then we are able to have a conversation because we certainly need more young people in that program so that we are able to reach and impact the communities that are most scattered. Okay, we're actually due for our first break so I hope you stay with me so we can discuss a lot more about the youth program. Certainly. You're watching Issues and Answers, please stay tuned, we'll be back in a moment. Welcome back to Issues and Answers, I'm your host, Jacques Henson Compton and we're talking about the youth worker program. So before we left, Miss Wilfred Schumer mentioned that you had been undergoing a lot of training as a youth worker. Just talk to us a little bit about that. Okay, where do I begin? Yes, we do take a lot of training and the ministry always tries to engage us in those opportunities. Some of our training would include with the, we did youth work, essential in youth work and it was a very compact and interesting program where we learned about the history of youth work, what is expected of youth work, how to engage young people and how to prepare ourselves for the practice. There were so many other agencies and other organizations who have reached out. We've done extensive training with the USA, for example. And that's just to name a few and the ministry itself would have had training within the department for us youth workers. And in addition to that, well, we have youth workers in the south and youth workers in the northern part of the country with two different supervisors. So for the northern aspect, every Thursday the supervisor engage the northern youth workers in training. So it's a continuous training. We're doing policies, strategies, chancex walks, community profiling, different areas. So it's basically continuous to help developers as we go along. That leads me to another question. What sort of would you say maybe both academic and personal personality traits would you say is required for you to be a youth worker? I would say a personality trait of patience, one, understanding and somebody that is very personal. So you have to be able to relate to people. You kind of go to a community of young people and expect them to give you positive feedback if you are very negative. So you need to have that positive energy. Someone that wants to make a difference. So you have to be ambitious. So you know you are a young person. You know the challenges you face. You know that young people like yourself face similar challenges. So you have to go there from mindset that you want to help and want to make a difference. Okay. Now that also leads me to my next question. What sort of activities? I mean you can both answer because from different communities they will have your different respective activities. What sort of activities do you undertake as a youth worker? Well let me add that there are different youth workers. A youth worker would have had their own decoration of skills and ideas that would address their community needs. And so we have different activities. So for example with me in Viewfort we have the YET program Youth Enhancement Training. We have other activities that targets skill developments. So for example just out of Viewfort I was able to form the Jolity Youth Club so now I have a group of young people young children from 9 to 18 who are now training to be young leaders. And now we even have young persons asking how could they be part of the Youth and Sports Council. So it is basically developing activities addressing studying youth work is a social science. We continue studying what is needed in our communities. What about? So for me I like to take a holistic approach so it's not just sports. So if you have sports programs then we have capacity building trainings even I believe last year Shaman and myself collaborated on a soap making training where persons literally had a hands-on experience and literally making soap I also do trainings in mental capacity leadership training we also do hamper donations because if you are not fed or you're hungry then you cannot focus on a training or how to develop your skills. So it's a holistic approach feeding programs as I said hamper training, mental health how to care for your body so hygiene, social development and we're even looking to do a tax training because we find that a lot of young persons do not know about taxes or how to file your taxes so that's another training I'm looking into. So it's a lot of different life skills that you are training persons for. Like I mentioned the youth enhancement training it's a training basically to help young people develop their interpersonal skills their soft skills employability skills it's a multifaceted approach to help young people identify themselves and to build themselves up improve competencies in different areas. Now I guess again both of you could answer this question what do you find are the major challenges of being a youth worker? This one is a question that we often discuss amongst ourselves one of our challenges right now is getting young people involved. You find young people are now distracted by social media and so forth and what used to be before we used to have active clubs and groups now it is a challenge to get young people to regain interest and to redevelop those youth groups those clubs and so forth. For me I would say lack of resources not lack of limited because we have the amount of people that you want to reach the amount of resources it does not compare. So let's say trainings right a firm believer of entrepreneurship and you know making yourself employable so let's say we do a training for example let's go back to the soup making we could have only facilitated a small amount a good amount just because we did not have as much resources because it's quite expensive to get the material so let's say we wanted to reach a hundred or even 300 persons because we did not have as much resources we would not be able to reach so many so I would say limited resources is one of the main challenges. Would you say that you either of you have seen very positive outcome as a result of your work? Yes yes yes I consider but I'd like to also add that results it cannot be shown it cannot be exposed instantly because with your work is a process you help them develop the skills and you monitor you evaluate and over a period of time sometimes yes maybe today we conduct a soup making workshop and 15 years down the road we see this young lady selling soup. Although it's long term sometimes you can see short term results because I was working with this young man who is very talented but he was very shy so he would write poetry music and everything but he was afraid to show off his work and you know I was working with him and I had this program mini concert for young people and he actually came up and he read one of his poems and it was an original piece and everyone was so fascinated by the level of competence that he had so sometimes you see the results sooner rather than later okay we're actually due for our second and final break please again please stay with me we have a little bit more to discuss you're watching issues and answers please stay tuned we'll be back in a moment Pamela I noticed that you built your retaining wall on my property you will have to give me my land back or compensate me for that my contractor isn't dumb I trust that he will not build anything on your property where is your proof let's go to court this situation does not require you to go to court looks like we have to go through mediation here mediation is a way people resolve conflicts like this someone a third party comes to speak to both parties this person is called the mediator the mediator is impartial he or she makes sure that communication between both parties is effective and efficient so the mediator is a judge no the mediator is not a judge mediators unlike judges do not decide cases or impose settlements let me get a mediator to handle this retaining wall and that kitchen kitchen? yes your kitchen also falls on my land let me call the mediator welcome back to issues and answers and we're talking about the youth worker program at the ministry of youth development and sports so while we're off camera we're talking about some of the needs that you have been able to assess as youth workers in your different communities talk about specific examples of things that you've seen and you took the initiative to address it okay so as youth workers sometimes we try to collaborate because you know stronger together there was this instance where there was a house fire and a young family lost everything so we came together as youth workers and we contributed we saw clothing items food items, cleaning products house items and then we went down to Sofre Fossage Act to be specific and we went to the family and then we gave them a lot of items and they were so happy that you know they could have received that from young persons like ourselves in addition to that the hamper drives is something that we youth workers seem to collaborate a lot and we have needy families and being that we work in different communities we share ideas I may see something in my community and seek the advice of my other youth workers and they too seek their resources to help build up the need that is in my community Miss Woofer the next question is actually for you what is the extent of the support that your ministry would have to give to the youth workers and not just your own support do you get cross sectoral support from the private sector yes yes I believe just recently we held a series of sexual health workshops and we got support from Massey, we got support from Peter and Company, we got support from I can't remember but we got support from the private sector we also sometimes have hamper as well we got some support from stores like Massey Distribution and these young people they take their own initiatives it's not something that they ask of the ministry as a team they see because these young people are from these needy families so while they may be working with a young person who have come to the camp or attended the activity they also know that that family is in need and that they have the resources to help that family sometimes you come with one agenda so like today you say okay I'm doing a hygiene training and you realize that there's someone going through depression or trauma then we make recommendations because we have a virtual counselling going on so we recommend sometimes you come with one agenda and then you end up seeing so many other problems that you can try to resolve with other agencies so these young people as they go through the schools and the communities they would encounter young people who are at the verge of dropping out or young people in difficult situations that they can live under the safety and security of their homes so that is when the ministry intervene and connect them to other ministries that can assist them or provide tutors or principal or teacher to have a discussion with that young man or that young woman so they stay in schools so these are some of the things that they spot out a lot of the vulnerable they would identify them and to see ways they can strengthen because youth work is a lot about getting young people into constructive pathways now once young people are engaging something that is constructive they love it, they see how they can benefit how they benefit themselves their family and the community you have them all on and that is what that initiative is about how do we get our young people engaged how we get them to participate and get them to see this is my community this is where I live, this is where I work and this is where my children would live this is where my generations would be what can I do to make it better so yeah and you find like when you help somebody well because we currently have a closed donation and the mouse of clothing items that we got donated was remarkable shoes bedsheets so many different items so persons give back so that other persons can receive as well so if certain people listening to this program wanted to donate depending on the situation how would they do so okay so for the clothing drive it's in collaboration with the women's sports council ministry and youth advocacy movement so if they do want to donate they could just send us a message on the council's page or youth advocacy movement which is Yams and Lucia SLU you can reach us on Instagram Facebook either one you have many options so you can go ahead and reach out do you find it quite a challenge to have to deal with vulnerable groups as Ms. Wilfred mentioned earlier I wouldn't say I wouldn't call it a challenge I would just say it's very sensitive so you have to use a specific or strategic approach in how you go about dealing with it because you do not want the person to lose trust or lose faith in you so you have to be super strategic in dealing with those situations Ms. Charles do you want to say mention something actually in addition to Kazaia with youth sports council for example another thing is that youth work before I add youth work allows us to work collaboratively with the national youth council and it helps both partners both agencies work together to push the mandate or the focus or the main objective of youth development and so with that said just adding that in my community youth sports south we do have a Facebook page as well and we're also welcoming persons in the community to support the council and be it groceries or food which ever you may have to donate you can reach us through there and with the number that is provided on the page as well the two of you are obviously very passionate about your work both of you could answer this how do you get into it what made you want to get into youth work youth work started for me from a young age I grew up in a community back then youth work is known as the back alley where sports clubs were a thing then and we as children it could be bringing water for somebody going to a young person asking them are you okay youth work starts with that but we grew up into developing youth work as a profession so youth work started for me through the youth and sports council and again from a former youth worker who who showed us the way to grow and develop as young individuals a molding process and so youth work started for me from being exposed to a youth worker that's my path to professional youth work so this is where youth work started for me okay so for me from a very young age I was always involved in feeding the poor you know cause like when you're young when you go to church events that's what they were calling it feeding the poor program I was always excited to go and help clean people house and so forth that's how I grew up so I always had that passion for it and I'm someone I like to be involved in multiple things so like when I was in school all clubs I would join because I love music, arts everything of that sort so I would always be involved so when school is done I needed other groups to join so I started with joining clubs and then it got to a point where I was in 20 groups and probably now in 15 but it was that point and then so before I got into it professionally I was always at the ministry trying to get a donation and then with that I got exposed to Mrs. Wilfred and from there it just continued so it's like the love for it and helping someone seeing a smile on someone's face it actually drives me so I feel as if I'm not even at work unless because I feel as if you know I'm just doing what I have so that's how I got into it well we've actually come to the end of our program I want to thank all three of you for discussing at Lent something very important I learnt a lot today so thank you very much and I hope you actually come back again at another time Mrs. Wilfred has been on before she seems to enjoy my company so I hope the two of you show up again thank you you're watching Issues and Answers a production of the Government Information Service thank you for watching