Ministry of Youth decentralising its activities

Minister of Youth, Sports and Community Empowerment, Charles Griffith, has stated that decentralising the Ministry’s activities is one of the ways forward for informing the public, specifically the youth about its programmes.

He made these remarks at the Ministry’s Outreach Programme, held Saturday in Golden Square Freedom Park, Probyn Street, The City.

“I intend that all of our programmes that we have within the ministry as far as possible that we are going to decentralise….  We would have started as a ministry to decentralise a lot of our programmes that were usually housed at central ministry.  So for example, we just launched the Pathways Programme at six different locations,” Minister Griffith stated.

The Minister pointed out that this method of informing the public about the ministry’s programmes is being used to afford persons the opportunity to be informed and have access to the different programmes offered by the ministry first-hand within their communities.

Citing one of its decentralised outreach programmes, Minister Griffith disclosed that the ministry once again has an “active” Block Committee that will seek to ensure those on the blocks are provided with opportunities, a “second chance”.

“The Block Committee is now again on the blocks … and this is a good time to be a young person within this country because of the different programmes and initiatives that are coming through the ministry,” Minister Griffith noted.

He thanked the team at the Ministry for their effort in organising the first outreach dubbed “our open house” and shared that this format of outreach will continue across the island as the year progresses.

Visitors to the outreach programme saw booth displays from the ministry’s programmes including Pathways Employability Programme, Next Steps Training Initiative, U Report, Barbados YouthADVANCE Corps, Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme, Youth Achieving Results; and entrepreneurs who received training from the different ministry programmes, Cindy Springer – Naturi Bâri Designs, Dawayne Sandiford and Ranika Lewis.

There were also performances by Baje to the World winner, Tarique O’Neal Griffith; Ellerton Youth and Cultural Club trained by Jeffrey “Ifie” Wilkinson; Gimme Peace Pun de Mic 2021 winner, Jodie Williams; 14-year-old Joshua Oxley, and a drill demonstration from cadets of the Barbados YouthADVANCE Corps.