 Hello and welcome to Issues and Answers, a production of the Government Information Service. I'm here with the Executive Director of the St. Lucia Social Development Fund, the SSTF. He was here in our last program and we spoke a lot about the purpose of the SSTF. But what we want to do right now is focus on a lot of your programs that are targeted at the youth, like the Our Boys program, which you did speak on extensively on our previous program. So I wanted to just kind of summarize what the purpose of the Our Boys matter program is. Yes, the Our Boys matter program is designed to assist boys who are poor and do not have the access to basic resources, education resources. At the end of the day, education is not just about creating a school for that's good, that's needed, it's necessary. However, the resources that children need to go to school, of course, like books, uniforms and what have you, which SSTF has traditionally provided to a number of families every year. But of course, through the Our Boys matter program now, we provide them with the persons on OBM with transportation, those that need transportation, meals, some housing support and psychosocial support because there are times when there are issues in the families and what have you. So we provide them with that level of support, of course, sexes and what have you. And in some cases, we send them to care, we send a number of students to care and that has worked out very well because a number of them now are working gainfully employed because care has over 90% placement, employment placement. And we also have learned along the way that there is a need for what we call alternative pathways because one of the things we found is that not all children are ideally suited to the structured 9 to 5 type of school environment, I mean, preparation for work environment and facilitate them to sit in school like that in that structured way. So in some cases, we would send them to NLU or NSDC where they could spend a shorter time learning a skill so they can be equipped with a skill so they can go into the workforce. So NLU, I'm unfamiliar with NLU. National Learning Employment Unit. So basically they provide training that's similar to NSDC, technical vocational training, auto mechanics, electrical work, the hospitality and that sort of thing. Now you've mentioned a couple of things that I do want to address. How do boys qualify to get into our voice matter program? Very interesting. Initially we asked the seven schools that were targeted in the pilot in the first instance. By the way, now we have all the secondary schools across the island but initially it was seven schools in the north. And what we did, we asked the schools to provide names. We were targeted 100 boys and so we asked the schools to provide names of the boys. I must say in some cases some schools took the opportunity to try to provide names of students that day. That will be in a new sense I guess in the school. In some ways these were the persons that we were ideally targeting because I always said that an OBM was not necessary for choir boys but it was really for us to provide. There is a reason why some of these children were acting up. And a lot of times it was because they were just not interested in what was being taught. So of course they became the persons that would be distracting the classes and skipping school and behavioral issues and what have you. So yes, we took a number of them and a lot of them were able to go for the care program and graduate successfully. So it was important and it is important because the fact of the matter is we cannot turn our backs on the children that have behavioral issues at school. Our challenge is to find ways to help them so they can graduate and become from whatever field of interest for them so they can graduate and become productive citizens. If we make the mistake of saying, OK, child's behavior, we have behavioral issues, we don't want to deal with them, we will deal with them later on in life. And the later could be very immediate too. I agree with that. Is it an extensive problem locally where a lot of boys, a lot of our young men are dropping out of school? Absolutely, a lot of young boys are dropping out or they go to school infrequently. I can tell you in the first instance when we first started OBM their attendance rate shot up tremendously for these children, the number of these children, those that went to care and those that stayed in the traditional secondary schools. So let's put it this way, if children are actively engaged in school then that's less time for them to be involved in undesirable behaviors. So one of the things that OBM does also is it provides in some cases lessons after school lessons for children also. The thing is, that's one of the values of the after school programs. And the Ministry of Equity is heavily vested in after school programs because if you can get children actively involved in regular schools and your after school programs where they can get into sports and other meaningful things, maybe sports clubs and these things then it keeps them engaged. Otherwise, when you have young children with a lot of energy then I don't just want to sit by and do nothing. They get into a lot of things and a lot of times they unsupervised because unlike when I was growing up and you had two persons, two households, two parent families, a lot of children grew up in single parent homes. So now you have a lot of times as a mother at work trying to provide who's overseeing the kids after school. So it plays a creaky role. And I mean all we have to do is look at the news at night to see how the chickens come home to roast. Now you mentioned after school programs. I know there's a program that the SSDF is in charge of, the musical bells program. Could you speak a little bit about that? In addition to that, try to, in your own opinion, tell me how important you think after school programs are to young men or youth and do you think music programs like music help the youth? Yes, the musical bells program you talk about, that was really the brainchild of the minister of equity, Mr. Dr. Henry. And so he piloted, he's piloting that program in his constituency. It is often said that music, a lot of children that are strong in math, have the aptitude for music. And it's a very interesting, you know, I know there's some studies done on that, you know. And so for me, I think anything that can keep children actively engaged in something that, you know, in some cases they can further develop, but in something that is good and wholesome, I think it is good. You talk about after school programs, I think they are critical, far more so now than in the days when you had two persons at home or grandmother. A lot of children grew up with a grandmother at home. I see you smiling because, you know, really a lot of children grew up with a grandmother. Even though my dad was not home, the granny was there or grandpa was there. So, but now of course we do have that. You had the neighbors, you know, a whole critical part of a family unit. And so even if the parents were not there, I mean, I remember when as a child, I had to wait for my neighbor, his Daphne James, to go so that, you know, so that we could get out on the road and do things that we know you're not supposed to do on my parents' house at work. So the after school programs provide some element, well, not some significant guidance, you know, for children during the period of time when school is out and the parents come home from work. And so again, some children afforded opportunities for additional lessons and some of them maybe in sports and, you know, and some other areas of importance. I would say in the same vein, I think that I always lamented, I call the death of a lot of sports clubs in St. Lucia because when I was growing up as a child, I mean, we had, you know, we as, I remember we formed an under 16 club to participate in the John Odlem under 16 tournament. That was going on back in the time when I was young, that was football. And we formed our club and we had Charlie Brown, who was a national player, actually a very good coach. He coached us, you know, and things like that. But there was discipline because, you know, a lot of times we got to the field and Charlie would say, we're not touching a ball today. You know, we're going to do exercise, we're going to do drills and stuff like that. But, you know, as boys we want to play, all of us want to please play. But, and if you didn't, if you did not comply, then you wouldn't play. So there's this, I always believe that that if we could get, find some way to bring back some of these clubs, these clubs, whether they be uniform clubs or, you know, football track and field you name it, cricket, you know, get, we need to get our children engaged in other activities so that they would not be, basically have nothing else but the recruitment into some of these types of, you know, undesirable behaviors. So I think it's very important. Now I also understand that you have mentorship programs. Could we speak a little bit about that? Again, mentorship came out of OBM. One of the requirements from ASI stores when we first concept was that, as I said, it had to be vulnerable boys and they had to be a strong mentorship component. But I will say to you that it is tremendously challenging to get male mentors. The reality is this, and from my perspective, female mentors are readily available. However, most of these boys have access to mothers, grandmothers, you know, aunts, you name it, you know, a lot of teachers are female. So a lot of the role models they see around them are female. The role models they may see, a lot of the male role models they would see would not be the type of roles that we want. So I felt, for me, I was very committed to finding male mentors. That has been tremendously challenging. I mean, you have Mr. Boo Hingson, everybody knows Boo. And, you know, he's really the poster child for mentorship. You know, his involvement with his mentees, you know, and what have you. We've had training, we've had commitment from a number of persons that they will do it and they come on board and they do the training. Very few of them stick the course, stay the course. And I think it's unfortunate to the point where, from a couple years ago, Mr. Anthony and a few members of our team, of the OBM team, had asked for, you know, wanted female mentors. But I was a little adamant that we should insist. I do not have a problem with us having female mentors, but I think it is critical that young boys see males doing positive things. And so I was very a little, as a little bit stubborn about it. And I'm still hopeful that we can find some way to engage. I know that out there we just have to reach them so that we can provide that level of support in addition to, you know, female mentors, but for sub-male mentors. I have heard sayings that it takes a man to raise a man, not to take anything away from single mothers. They do, a lot of them do a very good job, but it's a lot easier from my own experience if you have a male role model to kind of mentor you or father you or what have you. That is critical. I think I say all the time, nobody told us as children, my brothers myself, that we had to go out and work. Sorry, let me just stop you right there with you for a break and we'll come right back to what you were talking about just now. You're watching issues and answers. I notice 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. Yes, we're back. You're watching issues and answers. We're here with SSDF executive director, Mr. Dr. Allison Mather, and we're talking about... Well, before we left, we were talking about mentorship of young men. Yes, I was saying. So, nobody had to tell us that we had to go out and provide for our families, take care of our children and things like that. But, unfortunately, our young males do not learn that lesson now. The big reason is that nobody had to tell us because we saw it. We saw it in our affair. I saw it in my father, my neighbors, my friends' fathers. That was the rule. Granted, fathers didn't show a whole lot of them back then. They didn't discipline. But we knew. We knew they provided for us. And certainly, I knew at my home that there were serious consequences for what you call bad behavior. But that is absent now. So, the role of a mentor now becomes critical because these young men... And I can tell you with the example of Boo's mentor, one of the mentees of Boo. I mean, this was a young man that was really, really troublesome. I had to tell you a true fact going to the point where I felt like that boy should not be in the program. He was at care at the time. He, in particular, was really scared that he didn't want to have anything to do with him. And then Miss Anthony and Boo continued to work with him. And Miss Anthony got him into an alternative thing where he went to an apprenticeship thing, a garage and he subsequently entered care. So, the point I want to make is that without Boo's mentorship, that young man would have been born a long time ago. And so we have some of these examples of the mentors. There's no doubt in my mind that mentorship would successfully assist a lot of these young men transitioning. But the problem is finding the middle mentors. Now, you have two other programs that I want to talk about. You have the adolescent development program as well as the educational assistance program. Can you talk about both of those? Well, the adolescent development program is a care program. It's a program that's conducted by care. It's almost akin to pet personal enhancement training. And one of the requirements for care is that they must do the ADP, what they call the ADP. That program, they must do it for about, I think, a year long before they start to get into some of the technical vocational training. Although I believe that it could be done in conjunction with it rather than after the fact. But it's a very, very good program. I can tell you, even from some of our experiences with the BNTA program where students learn the pet training or the ADP training, they would single out that as one of the main reasons for them to stay in the course of one of these programs. Because you teach them conflict resolution. One lady gave a testimonial and said that she was always fighting in her community and this and that. And then when the sewing, she was doing sewing, one of the initiatives we had was sewing. And she said that, you know, her mother didn't know what to do with her and what have you. And after she did the pet training, she said that, you know, it really changed her thinking and her approach. And that she was a better person for it. So it is a critical thing. As a matter of fact, I wonder often why some of these programs are not taught at the school level. You know, a very good ADP type program should be taught at the school level. Because, you know, in schools you have all kind of conflicts fighting, children fighting and all kinds of things like that. So I think it would help a lot, but it certainly helps get these children rounded in, you know, and how they should behave in schools and that sort of thing. And it helps to predict their success. I also understand that you had some, as you mentioned, Kay, you had some, you conducted some work with the 2022 graduating class of Kay. Could you speak a little bit about that? Well, let me just put it in perspective. They were our boys' matter students. So they were, every year Kay graduated students, we have some OBM students as part of it. Two years ago one of the boys gave a testimonial. He had to speak on it and he spoke about the fact that he didn't know what would happen to him if the OBM program had not come on board and he had not been given the opportunity to go to care and stuff. So, you know, he was very thankful because the road he was going down was not a good one at the time. And also similarly, this year we had some of the boys, our boys, graduate from Kay, you know, and that's what happens. A lot of our boys that go to Kay graduate from Kay and I just wish that we could send more boys to Kay. I just wish that there'd be more Kay type institutions so that we can take care of the number of children that have the aptitude and interest in the technical vocational training. Yes, as you mentioned that because Kay has a lot of, in lieu of young boys being, I guess, showing more aptitude for the academics. You have auto mechanics, carpentry, joinery skills. Electrical training. And I'll say this to you, very good program because a lot of the boys went by the time they go to do the apprenticeship training. Before they graduate, a number of them have already secured employment, you know. And I mean, to me, that's one of my attractions to the program, you know, because one of the things about technical vocational training, it lends itself easier to self-employment. You know, if you learn plumbing at school, what does it take for you to be the plumber in your community when you graduate? What does it take for you to be, you know, fix vehicles as a, you know, whether you go and work for a little somebody, a shop, or you set up your own thing. You know, so there are opportunities for them to, for self-employment. And they come out from, they come out from school, they graduate from school, ready for work. That is critical. The same cannot be said for persons that go to theoretical, theoretical roots. Because what we're doing is we're preparing them for university, which is not bad. I'm not saying it's bad. For those that do not make it to university and they end up going, they have to go to work, then it becomes, essentially, it's almost like they come out of school and they're ready to work skills, unlike the technical vocational. Now, on our last program, there were some things that you were discussing. We never got a chance to, to finish talking about resource mobilization. I was making the point and I was speaking on a sad COVID came up because right at the time when we were really moving into full gay, in terms of setting up a thrift shop, I was saying the idea was, is that we would, based on the memorandum of understanding the sign between the SSDF and the USLOA, is that the SSDF would set up a shop type structure, a store type structure. And from the free countries, the USLOA under the umbrella would send goods stuff to St. Lucia that would be sold at the industry, in the thrift store. And the proceeds of that would, there was a steric, steric committee that would be set up to govern the operation of the St. Lucia USLOA association. And the steric committee could comprise members of the USLOA and of the SSDF board and management. And together, collectively, they would decide what initiatives they would undertake with the proceeds. Our challenge was finding a suitable location. Obsesious SSDF, there is space, but it would take too much money to be very costly to rent a retrofit that and ideally, the other thing is ideally you want to be close to the town so you have walking traffic and others. So we still challenged by that. The plan is to even to seek some assistance from our diaspora partners to see if they can assist us in getting set up. It would be nice if we had a factory shell or something where we could do that. But we still, look, there were persons in St. Croix, the St. Croix association, and we're ready to go. Containers, they prepared to send stuff. But notwithstanding that, we still, even during the COVID time, we got some assistance from the diaspora and some people just heard about the SSDF for the diaspora and they would reach out. There was a small group in the UK that sent some microscopes, very expensive microscopes for schools in St. Lucia. So we continue to get wheelchairs and other things like that, pampers and school supplies and stuff from the diaspora. The diaspora is a largely untapped resource. There are number of St. Lucia's that live overseas and they want to help. And the biggest challenge for a lot of them is it is not organized. So the SSDF now, that's why they were very happy that the SSDF, there is an SSDF around because now there is a source where they can send the stuff and they would know that it's going to what is intended because there's also, as you would appreciate, some elements of fraud where people ask the diaspora partners for goods, for certain things and that's not what they want to use it for and all kinds of things like that. So in terms you had mentioned about educational assistance and the SSDF from as far back as the PRDs, that's probably the oldest SSDF program, educational assistance. And understandably so because I mean we help over 3,000 children a year to be able to go back to school, books, uniform, shoes and now even some cases transportation and what have you. And the sad thing is that we cannot help everybody. So for example under the SSDF regular program, we wouldn't help more than 2 persons in a household. So if a mother has 5 kids, you can only help 2. What happens to the other 3? You know and things like that. But education is expensive, books are very expensive and so that is a challenge again for government because I still believe that I don't see that we have a choice in terms of ensuring that our children have the means to go to school and they can stay in school because they're not hungry, you know they're not at school thinking that they don't have food, seeing that they have a call. You know it just doesn't make sense, we must find a way. I know it's going to be costly but like I say the cost of not doing it is just far too great because a lot of kids that could have gone on to become productive citizens they end up, a lot of them end up dead and others end up in other bad situations. That is very true. We've come to the end of our program. I want to thank you very much for coming. I hope you can come again to talk about the good work at the SSDF. So thank you very much Dr. Mather for coming on. Thanks for the opportunity and thanks for the opportunity to speak on the programs at the SSDF. Thank you. Thank you. You're watching Issues and Answers, a production of the Government Information Service. I'm your host, Jacques Kingston Compton. Please stay tuned to the National Television Network and a lot of our other programming can be available on our Facebook page and on our YouTube channel.