More Than 40,000 Young Persons Enroll In HOPE Programme

More than 40,000 young persons have been enrolled through the Housing, Opportunity, Production and Employment (HOPE) Programme since it was launched in May 2017.

HOPE is a youth engagement initiative that targets persons aged 18 to 24 who are not employed or enrolled in a school or training programme.

The HOPE programme is intended to provide an avenue for the development of fully rounded individuals who have the social, academic and technical skills to become productive members of the society.

It is, in part, a training and apprenticeship programme, which will provide an avenue for the development of fully rounded individuals, through a system of National Service Corps to become productive members of society.

Participants are required to take part in mandatory core training, inclusive of life skills, good citizenship, work ethics, discipline, volunteerism and entrepreneurship.

Following that, they are engaged in specific skills training and serve as apprentices, where they will be allowed to work in the particular skill area for a stipend with a savings component.

Providing an update on the initiative, National Coordinator, HOPE Programme, Colonel Martin Rickman, tells JIS News that several measures are being implemented to ensure the continued engagement of youth, despite the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

These include, but are not limited to, incorporation of online training; greater engagement with entities to provide employment and training opportunities for youth, utilisation of community centres with Internet capabilities to facilitate ‘work from home’ for participants.

He notes that some components of the training and engagement are being undertaken online with the participants.

Colonel Rickman adds that the trainers, who have been engaged through HEART NSTA Trust, have also received the requisite training to impart the knowledge to the participants via the new modality.

“We have been doing some things with online training, and that has been very good. However, because of the type of persons we engage on the HOPE programme, which are usually the unattached, inner-city youth from the poorer communities, one of the big challenges is that they don’t have access to online modality of training. Even if they have a smartphone, which some of them may have, they still do not have the data or the access to the WIFI in that regard,” he points out.

The National Coordinator informs that linkages are being created with community centres that have Internet connectivity or computer labs, so that youth can gain access to the training being provided.

“So, we are working with these communities all across the island. We want to get back to the point where we can do adequate training. Now, it won’t be the same, because it is not in-person training, but I expect that we will get back there,” he shares with JIS News.

Colonel Rickman discloses, too, that “systems” have been implemented to support the young persons who are engaged in online training.

“The truth is, the job of engaging these persons has become difficult, maybe tenfold, but every single area that has been presented as a challenge, brought on by one simple thing, which is the pandemic –  the challenge of face-to-face, online modality, access – we take each one of those in turn and we are tackling them head on,” he says.

Colonel Rickman notes that notwithstanding the online component, community type training for certain skills is also being explored.

“For example, the construction skill – we can do block laying for instance. All we need is a yard space and then we can train persons in block laying, get them to a point where they can go out, either seek out employment with our help in the block-laying field or they can offer themselves to small homeowners to do block laying,” he explains.

He points out that discussions have and are being held with stakeholders in several sectors that could facilitate engagement of young people in more outdoor settings.

“I will invite anybody out there who, even if it is a small business and you can take on one person or you are a large business and you can take on 100 persons as interns, come talk to us at HOPE. Come talk to us at HEART and let us find these avenues to develop our young persons in a positive way,” he adds.

The onset of COVID-19 has resulted in reduced placement opportunities for interns of the HOPE programme, particularly in offices.

Maintaining physical distancing and reducing workplace density are some of the measures that have been implemented by the Government to minimise the spread of COVID-19.

“We are also looking to have persons work from home. Many of the unattached youth may not have access at their homes, so by home in this case, I mean community centres or centres where they have access to online modalities where they can do work for persons from the community centres,” he explains.

The National Coordinator says that despite the challenges presented by the pandemic, HOPE remains resolute in providing opportunities for young people to be actively involved, while making a meaningful contribution to the country.

“We are trying to be innovative in the ways we engage persons. We want to get more interns going into areas like auto mechanics, where people are not confined in physical spaces and they can do an internship without breaking the social-distancing rule. It is not easy and we may not be able to do as much as we used to do, but nonetheless, we can still be pushing,” he argues.

He admits that while the sign-up rate for the programme has slowed as a result of the pandemic, youth engagement programmes are critical in steering them away from crime and violence.

“The future of the country depends on what we do with these youth now and the population of the unattached youth, meaning those youth who are not involved with any meaningful development skills, not attached to any programme of training or anything like that, are most vulnerable to getting involved with the most nefarious thing. They get involved with crime and violence and we need to change that dynamic,” he emphasises.

The National Coordinator says regardless of the qualification of the individuals, they are welcome to join the programme and benefit from skills training and work placement opportunities.

The HOPE programme is guided by the principle that every Jamaican youth will be provided the opportunity to work to learn, work to earn, work to give service to the nation and work to save for their future – Learning, Earning, Giving, Saving (LEGS).

The programme promotes and optimises the growth and development of Jamaica’s youth, so that they can become well adjusted and responsible citizens, whilst contributing to Jamaica’s development and prosperity.