 Good day and welcome to Issues and Answers, a production of the Government Information Service. I'm your host, Jacques Hingson Compton, and today we're going to talk about the role of the Youth Department in the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports. And with me is Director of the Department of Youth, Mary Wilfred. Thank you for being on the show. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Mr. Hingson Compton. I am honored to be here this afternoon. Thank you for that. So let us start off with the role and importance of your department, the Department of Youth. Okay, so it's the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports and there are two divisions, the Division of Sports and the Division of Youth. So I'm currently serving as the Director of the Division of Youth. This division emerged in 2017, January 2017. There was a cabinet decision to split between youth and sports, because previous to that we had a youth and sports director. And so in an effort to place more effort or concentrated effort on youth development, the decision was made to split the two. So when you say youth, what age range are you talking about? Our New York policy has marked 16 to 29 as the target for young people, which is in some major international organizations that would be the age range as well. However, while that is the target, we still have programs that would target below 16, or we can have programs that move as high as 35. But that is the band there, 16 to 29. So could you also talk about your role as the Director of Youth? What exactly is your day-to-day like? Okay, so my role as the Director of Youth is to ensure that there are appropriate programs implemented in the communities that would benefit young people, to ensure that youth development remains grassroots, like a bottom-up approach rather than a top-down approach where we decide what young people want. And so with the implementation of the Youth Workers Program, we have about 22 young people in communities who are serving as field workers. And so they report the needs of young people because communities are different. Some communities are more into culture, some are more into music. Different communities have different needs and they would pass that on to us and we would respond through the appropriate programs. So I do want to get into the needs of youth that you do address, but other than the staff that you just mentioned, what other sort of staff do you have? What is their day-to-day like? We also have, well, the youth workers are supervised by youth officers. So their role would be to ensure that these youth workers are doing their workers' plan. They have been effectively supervised, monitored and evaluated. And also there would be the liaison at the office in terms of resources and technical support for the programs that would be going on in the communities. Okay, so now let's talk about the issues that affect youth that you sort of hinted at earlier. I imagine there are a lot. Can you just talk about what you do have to deal with? Is it things like youth unemployment? Yes, there is youth unemployment. There is also a lot of psychosocial issues that are affecting young people. There is youth looking for opportunities to be able to excel in the skills and the talents that they have. There is homeless youth. Young people are without a safe dwelling. You also have young people who have been probably, you know, they've dropped out of school. They don't have the required minimum qualifications in the CXC to be able to get into decent employment. So you have these young people that you now have to navigate and lead them to training programs in order to enhance their skills. So there's quite a lot of young people looking for ways to express their own talents. You know, so they're looking for dance groups. They're looking for I'm singing groups. They're looking for organizations and clubs in the communities where they can express those things as well. So with the challenges comes opportunities as well. So a youth worker may have a camp and young people in a community might say, you know, Miss, we really think that we want a dance club in our community. So you now have to put the wheels in motion. Who's going to teach you? Where are you going to train after you've been training? Where are you going to perform? So you now begin to put those wheels in motion because the young people are saying, we are ready. We love to dance. And so you now have maybe 10, 12, 15 young people engage in something that they love. And that thing may take them to, you know, we never know where that skill or that talent may take them to. So this is what we want to continue to do in the community is the young people express the need and we work with them with that need. So how do you just communicate to them solely through the youth officers? The communication is done in the communities through the youth workers. Youth workers would report to their officers that there is a need and then we meet with the appropriate stakeholders and decide, OK, this is what we can do with the resources that we have. So how exactly do you go about facilitating any of the, let's say, the singing groups or the youth groups? OK, so the youth groups are often youth groups or youth clubs are part of the Youth and Sports Council in the communities. So if a youth group is probably, let's say a youth group is having an election or they've just changed the executive, there are some things that they would want from us. They would ask whether they can get training. Yeah, they can ask whether their constitution is robust enough and what is it that can be done to, you know, ensure that the constitution is written well and they are able to work from it. So we can also invite us to supervise the elections to ensure that, you know, the democracy has been practiced well and so we would give support for that. So we can ask you to, we can invite you to a meeting, look at your constitution and discuss with you some of the areas that you may need to improve. So it's a lot of engagement, whether it's virtual or physical, in order to help these young people move from one level to another. OK, you mentioned something a while ago that I do want to address after the break as we do for our first break. It was what you mentioned about youth homelessness. I think that's something that we need to talk about as soon as we come back from the break. You're watching Issues and Answers. We'll be back in a moment. Everyone says counselling, counselling, counselling. I don't have the right chance. In my case, PS won't buy a single counsellor. Mali Glacia, just yesterday you asked me advice about your husband and we spent over an hour on the cell. That's counselling. I don't know what to do. Just think about it, Glacia. When you have a difficulty with someone, you ask your friends for advice to help you to deal with your problems. But wouldn't you prefer getting advice from a professional counsellor? I hope we're not one of those who think counselling is for crazy people. Don't you know the Ministry of the Public Service has an employee assistance programme they call EAP which is offering six free counselling sessions for government employees? Glacia, why don't you take advantage of it? Really? It's free? Let me call the EAP unit ASAP because I want professional, did you say free? Free counselling. Call the EAP unit at 468-2269. EAP Works, let it work for you. Welcome back to Issues and Answers. I'm your host, Jacques Kingston Compton and we're here today with director of youth, Mary Wilfred. Before we went on the break, I noted that I wanted to speak to you about youth homelessness. Just tell us a little bit about that. Well, it's an issue that we've stumbled on. There needs to be more data collected on it. But there is a lot of social displacement taking place in the society. And I think young people are part of that because they form a very large part of our society. So you have young people, well, there's a young man who loves a particular sport who told me that he doesn't have a place to live. And I began to inquire, you know, why was that and where do you stay and how are you able to, you know, how are you coping? And it was an issue of being socially displaced, not having grown up with his parents and, you know, just not in a secure dwelling, having to depend on friends or, you know, sleep under people's houses. So this is an area we've noted and we would want to see what it is that we can do in order to respond. Because one of the things young people would applaud any ministry for is for responsiveness. We must be able to respond to the needs. We can't be out there saying we are here to help you. And when the need comes up, you know, we cannot respond. So it may have to have a conversation with national housing, equity. It's really a collaboration because the Ministry of Youth cannot do it alone. We have to be able to collaborate with other agencies and address that issue. But we're still in early stages and right now it's anecdotal. We don't have, you know, any research. But it really piqued our interest in terms of, let's see what's happening with our young people and this issue of homelessness. Because it's not, to me at least, not a surprise that there would be youth that are homeless. Is it a case where they have to reach out to you in cases like that, the youth who are homeless? Yeah, I think they did not reach out, but in having a conversation, I understood, you know, because if you engage in certain things you must ask for, you know, where's your passport, if you're traveling. Documents that seem very normal to everybody and then, you know, this is here, this is there. So, yes, it's something that it's a social problem that we have to begin to address and not let it grow or not let it exacerbate. But because I think even during this pandemic with many losing jobs and, you know, that's certain unemployment, unable to pay rent, so even that too may cause further homelessness. So it is a need for us to begin to, as we move on to look at the impact of the pandemic on young people, perhaps that is an area that we would need to capture. So what sort of age range do you think that that particular ill would span? Do you have any examples of maybe school-age children? No, this young man had just left school. Okay. Yeah, this young man had just left school. Okay. And you noted earlier that you, at least in the future, plan to collaborate with departments like Social Equities. Oh, yes. Is that something that you have done before? Yes, we've done, yes. Yes, we do collaborate on many bad projects, projects through the Ministry of Equity where we were part of, we had the Youth Empowerment Project we've had. Yes, we've collaborated before. So because we serve in, you know, we serve in communities and we need to partner with one another so we can be more effective in impacting our people positively. Yeah. Can you also speak in a little more detail about some of the programs you have to encourage youth into something positive? I know you've mentioned the organizations you start to encourage them to sing, to dance. So what have you? Okay, so we have, I want to start off by sharing on the virtual counseling program. We do provide psychosocial support for young people. This program emerged out of the pandemic when we sent out, you know, we had some consultations and we were asking young people what would be the most pressing issue for them during the pandemic and they mentioned that that is an issue there. They had lots of anxiety over CXC, lots of anxiety about going to university, what then, what happens, you know, my parents have lost their jobs, what do we do? So we initiated that program and it's been well received. Many of our young people have been helped in that program. We also have a music and arts program that is coordinated by Mrs. Sherlian, Sherlian is a well-known vocalist in St. Lucia and she, the aim of that program is to discover talent very early so that these young people can be now, they can channel, you know, they can be channeled into singing groups and they can be, you know, they can be that star and that vocalist or whatever they want to do if it's composing or singing or whatever. So lots of work started at the school where Mrs. Mayers had been helping with the music teachers and her first thing was the chorale, big groups and students, children singing in parts but that of course took a back seat because school was out and we've also been involved in video production for independence. We're now working on a quail production. We have young people writing the script and they would be the ones who will be engaged in this film. So we try to target young people with many different skills. So you'd have the writers, you'd have the actors, you'd have the directors and yes. So that is going on even as we speak. And you have put, because film is a passion of mine obviously. Do you have people who train them in these areas? Well, before the pandemic we did quite a bit of training in film. That was done by Mr. Colin Weeks. And so we invited young people in different parts of the island actually to come in to receive the training and the training was well received by both male and female. And not long after that we're into this pandemic where everything has to be video and film. So I think we did well in that. We were able to get these young people involved in that because even now as we speak the Barbono Secondary, we had a bill program Beckwith International Leadership Development where young people are trained to become volunteers and these young people have been trained in that very filmmaking and they now have the club and made certain ads for COVID and encouraging young people to keep the protocols and that sort of a thing. So this is where we want to go. And we know that the demand is there for young people to, if you have a film workshop, young people are going to turn up. Okay, and just briefly before we go on to our final break, for anyone who wants to get into these programs, who do they contact? Okay, so they can contact one of the youth worker in their community or they can come to the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports. We are located on Miku Street opposite Access, Upstairs Hang-Ten and they can ask for Mr. Nixon Barry or they can ask for Miss Mary Wilfred, Mr. Nyron Taliam, Miss Kisha Mongru, our receptionist. Any of these names would, they would have been directed to the youth division. Okay, perfect. So please come visit us. All right, so we're due for our final and second break. You're watching Issues and Answers. Please stay tuned. Keeping hands clean is important for good health. However, after a disaster staying clean is hard to do, especially if there is no pipe-borne water. Simple things you can do, stay clean and remain healthy are, wash your hands with soap and clean water. If these are not available, sanitizers with alcohol are options. Wash your hands many times during the day, before preparing food, eating, caring for a sick person or baby, treating a cut wound or sore. Wash hands after using the bathroom, changing diapers, caring for animals, caring for sick or injured persons, after handling garbage. Washing your hands is one of the best ways to prevent illness. For further information, contact the Bureau of Health Education at telephone number 460-5349. Welcome back to Issues and Answers. I'm your host, Jacques Kingston Compton and we're speaking with the director of youth, Mary Wilfred. Yes, so we're talking a lot about the role of the Department of Youth in the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports. Now, we've spoken a lot about how COVID has affected the youth, but what about your work in particular, your department in particular? How has it changed how they tackle their own work? Okay, so what has happened is that it has placed us more in the virtual space. So there is provision for all youth and sports organizations to use our Zoom account for their meetings, right? But before, they would call and book our conference room for meetings and so it was a good avenue to get to know who are the leaders, but now we're reducing the face-to-face interactions and so we're saying to youth and sports organizations there may be a cost to the Zoom conference and call. We can give you access to ours so you're able to meet your members. So we can meet them and they can also meet their members. So quite a number of organizations have held their elections, they've held their meetings through our Zoom platform. We want to really initiate a virtual development, a youth virtual development area where we're planning to have a forum where young people can come and discuss hot topics that affect them. That will be run by young people, it will be programmed by them and so giving them a voice to speak out is important to us and so we want to offer that, that would be one of the new things that COVID has allowed us to do. We also want to look at a place where young people in art and sculpting and painting, there's a place where people can see what they are doing, young people, because before you had to go to the town hall to see paintings and you know these kinds of things but now that it's not been done, we're planning or we're thinking of giving them that kind of space. A place where you can look at St. Lucian trivia, so young people are now tasked to look at what is happening in St. Lucian that somebody can go online. You know as you go on Facebook they're trivia concerning rivers and capitals and things, we want that for us because young people are saying, you're not teaching us enough heritage, we don't know enough about our heritage. When Creole month comes there's a big splash but then we don't know our heritage so we're thinking of that trivia on our heritage so we've tasked them to do that work for us so we have a bank of questions where you can just look it up and see what you know about your heritage. So these are some of the ways in which we are trying to use that virtual space so that young people can get information, get involved, they can participate, they can produce that sort of thing. Now this would be a little bit of a controversial topic. I know under COVID you would have an increase in maybe gender based violence but what about youth, child abuse, is that something you all would address? Is it an issue? What I know in some meetings we've participated we know that there has been an increase in teenage pregnancy during the pandemic. That's the only, I suspect the presenter was speaking from a position of knowledge and position of facts so that's all that we know and we've also received data from UNICEF, kind of big organizations that speak to young people facing more violence because everybody is at home, everybody is at home especially when COVID just hit everybody was at home in that small space, crowded, no school because we were still figuring out what it was going on so these organizations have point to increase in gender based violence during the pandemic but we have not collected our own data. It's what I have followed on meetings, on conferences their data is pointing that yes this is happening. Okay we're coming close to the end of the program but I also want to speak a little bit about your relationship with the NYC, the National Youth Council. Do you work in tandem with them? Oh yes, we have a very cordial working relationship with the National Youth Council. We see them as equal partners in youth development and at every turn our intention is to work alongside with them, collaborate their major stakeholder in youth development and so I think all relationships can be improved but I can speak with assurance that we have a very good relationship with the National Youth Council. In fact coming up will be our National Youth Policy Action Plan consultation and there are a major stakeholder in that so I am proud to say yes, we do have a good relationship. Okay and finally if the public wish to volunteer or aid your department in any way how can they do so? So many times there is a call for young people to get involved in groups, get involved in organizations. We've had a lot of vibrant groups that have now become dormant because we don't have the continued leadership and so I want to encourage young people to get involved in their groups. I know the Youth and Sports Council sometimes they struggle to get people to be a part of the executive and we know that there are lots of young people who are capable in joining and adding their leadership skills to ensure that it is governed properly and that it meets the needs of young people. As well there are certain times of the year during youth month, we call on volunteers to help us in committees and help us to execute certain programs that we had. So sometimes it is based on what is happening but the call for volunteerism now is really for young people to get engaged, participate because through that you get the empowerment and through that you see your community through different eyes and what you can do in order to help your community become better. So get involved. Okay thank you for that and we've come to the end of our program. I want to thank you very much for coming on to our program and discussing your department's role and all the issues affecting youth including COVID and everything we've spoken about in the last half hour. So thank you very much. I hope to have you on the program again soon. Thank you Mr. Compton. Mr. Hingson Compton, thank you very much. You're watching Issues and Answers, a production of the Government Information Service. I am your host Jacques Hingson Compton and you can watch this program as well as all our other Government Information Service content on NTN as well as our YouTube channel and our Facebook page. Thank you for watching.