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Youth Information Centres being Established to help Young People

May 30, 2005

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Young people are the future of a nation and it is important that they are provided with the requisite resources to acquire the skills necessary to continue building the nation.
This is the objective, which the National Centre for Youth Development (NCYD) seeks to achieve with the establishment of Youth Information Centres (YICs) across the island.
Director of the NCYD, Ohene Blake informs JIS News that the YIC was first established in 1998 under the then Ministry of Local Government, Youth and Community Development and was later incorporated into the operations of the NCYD in November 2002.
“The YIC came about out of a situational analysis done in 2002, which highlighted that most of the interventions regarding youth were in the Kingston and St Andrew metropolitan area, and that the large number of young people living in other parishes were not being serviced by the various youth intervention programmes,” he says.
“It is a strategic response to that finding in the situational analysis, to place in each parish a focal point for youth development, where all youth programmes that are available, can be made available to young people, as well as make the basic facilities, such as computers, available for their own personal development,” Mr. Blake adds.
Youth empowerment and information dissemination are at the forefront of the YIC objectives. “We want to disseminate information to young people that will assist them in their own development. That could be information on governmental scholarships and their requirements, application forms for HEART or the National Youth Service (NYS) as well as non-governmental opportunities that might be available. So it is to ensure that young people in parishes where there are YICs, will not be starved of information,” Mr. Blake explains.
“We also seek to empower young people, with the provision of tools so that they can undertake their personal development. These tools include technologies, which will assist in empowering young people and give them the confidence, that is transformational,” the Director adds. There are currently two pilot centres in Port Maria, St. Mary and Portmore, St. Catherine, offering numerous services to the young people. These include cyber caf

Last Updated: May 30, 2005

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