MultiCare Youth Foundation Invites Young Persons to Sign Up for EU Bridge Project

The MultiCare Youth Foundation (MYF) is inviting more persons to sign up and participate in its EU BRIDGE project, aimed at empowering at-risk youth through a comprehensive array of interventions.

The project encompasses a holistic approach to youth development, integrating essential life skills training, vocational skills enhancement, cognitive behavioural therapy, internships, mentorship, and innovative art therapy initiatives.

Director of Projects and Strategic Management at the MYF, Mitzian Turner, pointed out that participants stand to benefit from a layered approach to personal and professional growth, with the project designed to equip them with the tools necessary for success in their personal lives and careers.

“Our programme is one that allows our participants to gain general life skills training… that will take them through life. So, it’s professionalism, respect for themselves and for others,” she told JIS News in an interview.

Mrs. Turner added that youth involvement in the programme will also “provide an opportunity for them to build the protective factors around them by pairing them with an adult who will act as a mentor to further guide them in respect of the goals that they may have for themselves, whether it is a personal goal or a professional goal”.

These mentors will work with them for at least a year to achieve or be on the path to achieving some of those goals, providing general guidance.

Armed with the belief that every young person has the potential to effect positive change in their lives and communities, the MYF, through the EU BRIDGE project, is offering not just opportunities but a pathway for self-improvement and community impact.

Mrs. Turner told JIS News that “what we’re hoping is that through their own change they will bring across this change in their communities.

“So, if we’re able to reach them and impact the way in which they think about themselves as well as the way in which they think about their community and the ways in which they can contribute to it, it will result and trickle down into the type of change we want to see, not just in the community but in Jamaica” she added.

To help achieve this objective, the project also has an art therapy component for persons to tell a story in their community by giving them an opportunity to help install murals.

“The murals are aimed at bringing across hope and inspiring youth to be better and do better and this exercise has impacted our past participants and so we are carrying it forward into this project,” Mrs. Turner said.

She also took the opportunity to highlight the measurable impact of the project, which started in January 2023, noting positive changes in participants’ attitudes, behaviours and competencies.

The success indicators for the project have already exceeded expectations, with more than 70 per cent of participants reporting significant personal growth, she said.

The EU BRIDGE project is specifically targeting communities, including Whitfield and Trench Town in Kingston and St. Andrew, Effortville in Clarendon, the Russia community in Westmoreland, and Salt Spring in Montego Bay.

For young people seeking to make a positive change in their lives, the EU BRIDGE project “is your pathway”, Mrs. Turner encouraged, adding that no prior experience or qualifications are necessary – just a willingness to grow and succeed.

To learn more about how to participate in the EU BRIDGE project, interested individuals are encouraged to visit the MYF’s website at www.myfjamaica.org; send an email to multicarefoundation@icdgroup.net, or telephone 876-922-6670.