HOPE Looking For More Opportunities To Place Interns During COVID-19

The Housing, Opportunity, Production and Employment (HOPE) Programme is working to develop more partnerships with entities that will create opportunities for employment and engagement of young people, particularly in environments that allow for physical distancing.

“In other words, we want to place them in areas where they are no longer confined to a physical office space,” said National Coordinator of the HOPE Programme, Colonel Martin Rickman, during a recent interview with JIS News.

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 the COVID-19.

Colonel Rickman noted that discussions have and are being held with stakeholders in several sectors that could facilitate engagement of young people in more “outdoorsy type” settings.

“So, we are looking at things like increasing the agricultural aides project. We have already met with the Minister of Agriculture [and Fisheries] to take on even more persons doing this. We are meeting with a number of entities that need to do surveys to do any kind of research, data collection and that kind of thing, or entities that want to do marketing,” he told JIS News.

“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 an intern, 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 added.

The National Coordinator said 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 pointed out.

The HOPE programme is a training and apprenticeship initiative that provides an avenue for the development of unattached youth, 18 to 24 years old.

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.

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 also aims to provide educational and job opportunities for young people.