Lisa Allen-Agos­ti­ni

While many weep, wail and gnash their teeth about the prob­lems of Laven­tille, there is a youth group that is work­ing to­wards chang­ing the fu­ture of this of­ten-em­bat­tled dis­trict.

We Are Bet­ter Youth (Wa­by) is a not-for-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion found­ed with the aim of sup­port­ing young denizens of Ovid Al­ley and Man­go Rose, Laven­tille, to be good cit­i­zens and high achiev­ers. I met the group's main ad­vis­er, Nichola Har­vey, a few weeks ago and she waxed elo­quent on the pro­gramme and its suc­cess so far. I want to share with you what the pro­gramme is about and how Wa­by is work­ing to change the cul­ture of vi­o­lence that has be­come so close­ly tied to the im­age of Laven­tille.

In a let­ter sent via e-mail, Har­vey said about Wa­by: "Our main goal is to con­tribute to the men­tal, spir­i­tu­al, phys­i­cal and so­cial de­vel­op­ment of the young peo­ple in the im­me­di­ate and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ty, rang­ing be­tween the ages of one to 16 years of age. This or­gan­i­sa­tion was es­tab­lished in Feb­ru­ary 2008 as an im­me­di­ate com­mu­ni­ty re­sponse to the loss of sev­en teenagers to gun vi­o­lence. It was the last mur­der that oc­curred in 2007 at Ovid Al­ley, Laven­tille, that prompt­ed the be­gin­nings of Wa­by."

Wa­by of­fers Sun­day school, read­ing and maths class­es, sports, cook­ing and arts and craft, and so­cial and his­tor­i­cal out­ings. Wa­by al­so dis­trib­utes fi­nan­cial grants to mem­bers who were suc­cess­ful in the SEA, holds Christ­mas con­certs and din­ners, and dis­trib­utes ham­pers to needy fam­i­lies.

"The above ser­vices have been and are main­ly fund­ed by the com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers or via var­i­ous fundrais­ing events and do­na­tions sheets," the let­ter said. "The group has al­so ob­tained fi­nan­cial and non-fi­nan­cial sup­port from both Gov­ern­ment and cor­po­rate bod­ies.

"In 2011, Wa­by was nom­i­nat­ed and re­ceived a spe­cial award from the Min­istry of Youth and Sports Af­fairs for Youth Group Con­tribut­ing to Youth De­vel­op­ment in the com­mu­ni­ty."

Wa­by has been a suc­cess so far, Har­vey in­di­cat­ed.

"We start­ed off with about sev­en youth and [have] now grown to more than 65 reg­is­tered youth, not on­ly from the area but oth­er sur­round­ing ar­eas such as Pic­ton, Gon­za­les, and low­er Laven­tille. In ad­di­tion, we have not lost an­oth­er youth mem­ber from the im­me­di­ate com­mu­ni­ty since 2007, al­though we are in the mid­dle of sev­er­al war­ring gang ar­eas. We be­lieve that in­clud­ing oth­er youth from oth­er ar­eas will as­sist in build­ing pos­i­tive re­la­tion­ships amongst oth­er com­mu­ni­ties and even­tu­al­ly con­tribute to low­er per­cent­age of gang war­fare in the fu­ture."

The group has be­gun a new pro­gramme for its mem­bers, based on a US youth pro­gramme called Mar­ket­place for Kids. Wa­by Says Yes (Youth En­tre­pre­neur­ship for Self-em­pow­er­ment) is the name of this ini­tia­tive to teach en­tre­pre­neur­ship and in­still a spir­it of pride and self-con­fi­dence in those mem­bers. It was launched on April 7. Wa­by Says Yes is a year­long se­ries of mod­ules run­ning the gamut from in­no­va­tion and en­tre­pre­neur­ial think­ing, us­ing tech­nol­o­gy and run­ning a busi­ness, to self-em­pow­er­ment, part­ner­ing with men­tors and de­vel­op­ing a Laven­tille Hall of Fame. The 11 mod­ules run month­ly at Roytec.

Its launch has been promis­ing, Nichola Har­vey in­di­cat­ed in an e-mail. Sev­en­ty-three youths aged four to 16 par­tic­i­pat­ed in the first ses­sion. Those aged be­tween four and sev­en showed draw­ings of the ar­eas of Laven­tille, Man­go Rose and their im­me­di­ate com­mu­ni­ties; those aged eight to 11 pro­duced dis­plays of the sto­ries of Bertie Mar­shall, Robert Greenidge, Clau­dia Pe­gus and oth­er en­tre­pre­neurs in their fam­i­lies or area.

"They al­so high­light­ed the Wa­by Says Yes vi­sion: Com­pe­tent, Cre­ative, Con­trib­u­tors and Car­ing," Har­vey wrote.Par­tic­i­pants 12 and over used group skits, Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tions and dis­play boards to tell the sto­ries of five en­tre­pre­neurs from Laven­tille: Michael Hack­ette (of Mikin Preser­v­a­tives), Ja­van Lewis (Au­to Ser­vice De­pot), Ray­mond Joseph (cater­er), Hai­ley and Bren­tice George (Fur­ni­ture House Ltd) and Anelle Bar­ri­mond (styl­ist).

It is the Wa­by board's hope that the pro­gramme, once ful­ly im­ple­ment­ed and found to be a suc­cess, can be ex­tend­ed to oth­er at-risk chil­dren across the coun­try and the East­ern Caribbean. Sev­en youths and some old­er ad­vi­sors com­prise the board, and what they have achieved so far is im­pres­sive. They have con­sid­er­able sup­port, but with a price tag of $600,000 for this pi­lot, I'm cer­tain they would en­ter­tain of­fers to help in cash or kind. The pi­lot pro­gramme ends in April 2014.

�2 If you wish to con­tribute or find out more about Wa­by and the Wa­by Says Yes pro­gramme, please con­tact Wa­by pres­i­dent Melin­da Thomp­son at 460-0831 or e-mail Nichola Har­vey at har­veyn­i­chola@gmail.com.