Rotary’s Project AMAI to support young mums

new initiative launched by the Rotary Club of Barbados aims to support more than two dozen young mothers up to age 24 through an eight-month programme called Project AMAI.

The programme, launched on Friday at the Mount Wesleyan Holiness Church Annex, is designed to enhance the mothers’ personal development, health and self-sufficiency. The project’s name is a common Zimbabwean term for “mother”.

“[It] is a comprehensive programme for young women up to the age of 24 who are pregnant or parenting,” said Rotary president Arlene Ross. “The aim of the programme is to improve the physical and mental health and life course outcomes of young mothers and their children and their families, and to help them to be self-sufficient for themselves and their families and ultimately to impact their future in a positive way.”

Project AMAI includes several key components, including personal development, parenting, budgeting and finance, health and wellness, job readiness, and vocational training.

Detailing the workshops on personal development, she noted that they will cover a range of relevant topics including mindset reset, self-esteem and confidence building, resilience and coping strategies.

“Budgeting and finance will cover areas such as financial goal setting and savings strategies,” Ross added, emphasising the programme’s holistic approach to equip participants with necessary life skills.

Health and wellness sessions, she shared, will focus on nutrition, exercise and medical checkups, emotional challenges from postpartum depression, techniques for reducing stress and maintaining mental health.

In addition to personal development, Ross said that participants will also receive vocational training starting in January 2025, stating.

“Under the vocational training component, Project AMAI is offering participants the opportunity to choose one vocational course, which would give them a skill that can be converted into a means to support themselves and their children,” Ross said.

The project will also distribute baby starter kits and life-saving equipment to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, according to Ross, addressing both immediate needs and long-term health outcomes for mothers and infants.

Former Rotary resident Brenda Pope added: “This project is encompassing, wide-ranging, and attempts to be holistic, but not to reinvent any wheels that are already operating very successfully in Barbados. We as a village need to make sure we support the most vulnerable among us.”

Reiterating the importance of addressing the needs of young mothers, Ross, the current president said: “We have realised that this is one of the ways to address poverty because poverty is rampant in a lot of female-led, single-parent households.”

Director of the Child Care Board, Rosanne Richards, expressed her support for the initiative: “This project gives [young mothers] the opportunity to get a skill.

“Even if they are out of school, what they are doing here this morning is a good complement. This sort of assistance is critical because, in a lot of cases, the teenage mothers’ parents were teenage mothers before them, so this is a good stepping stone.”

The programme is to culminate with a graduation ceremony in May.

The registration for the programme is now open and will continue until the end of the month, with 25 mothers already pre-registered. Interested participants can register at the Wesleyan Holiness Church Annex or via email at projectamaibarbados@gmail.com.

(SM)