Shal­iza Has­sanali

The Youth Train­ing Em­ploy­ment and Part­ner­ship Pro­gramme (YTEPP) is mov­ing to of­fer full-time cours­es at spe­cial­ty cen­tres through­out the coun­try. YTEPP is now of­fer­ing part-time cours­es at 20 sec­ondary schools through­out T&T. Plans are al­so in the pipeline to of­fer cours­es on­line in 2014.This as the agency fo­cus­es on de­vel­op­ing the coun­try's hu­man cap­i­tal.

CEO of YTEPP Nigel For­ge­nie said YTEPP has been man­dat­ed to re­tool in­di­vid­u­als from ages 15 to 60. Orig­i­nal­ly the pro­grammes catered to in­di­vid­u­als ages 15 to 25. The idea be­hind its pro­grammes is to cer­ti­fy trainees to en­ter uni­ver­si­ty.They are al­so now fo­cus­ing on train­ing young peo­ple for jobs that are avail­able on the mar­ket. The full-time cours­es will re­quire trainees to be in class­rooms for nine months.

"We are fo­cus­ing a lot more on the qual­i­fi­ca­tions... we are re­fo­cus­ing. No­body wants to hire an ap­pren­tice. What they want is an em­ploy­ee.... some­one who can do the job."To build and ful­ly out­fit each spe­cial­ty cen­tre will cost YTEPP be­tween $30 to $40 mil­lion, For­ge­nie said. YTEPP has been al­lo­cat­ed $90 mil­lion this year.

For­ge­nie said one way of get­ting the cen­tres up and run­ning was to use aban­doned equip­ment from de­com­mis­sioned sec­ondary schools un­der the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion.Through a com­bi­na­tion of de­ter­mi­na­tion, hard work and com­mit­ment, For­ge­nie said he has trans­formed YTEPP from a com­pa­ny with no di­rec­tion, to one that now stands proud of its achieve­ments. YTEPP is cel­e­brat­ing its 25th an­niver­sary in busi­ness this year.

Sit­ting in the CEO's chair for the past sev­en years, For­ge­nie said YTEPP has opened doors for thou­sands of un­em­ployed, un­der­em­ployed, dis­placed and re­trenched peo­ple by of­fer­ing train­ing in en­tre­pre­neur­ial, tech­ni­cal vo­ca­tion­al and life skills.YTEPP has al­so been pro­vid­ing "at-risk youth" with train­ing in the hope of im­prov­ing their em­ploy­ment and self em­ploy­ment prospects.

Some of the 43 cours­es YTEPP of­fers are ap­plied arts, au­to main­te­nance and re­pair, beau­ty cul­ture, join­ery, care of the el­der­ly, con­struc­tion, culi­nary arts, elec­tron­ics and plumb­ing.

Women tak­ing over class­es

Of the 170,000 peo­ple who re­ceived cer­tifi­cates over the years, For­ge­nie boast­ed that thou­sands have land­ed per­ma­nent and tem­po­rary jobs in the pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tors.Speak­ing at YTEPP's head of­fice in Ch­agua­nas on Tues­day, For­ge­nie said the agency has fi­nal­ly set­tled, hav­ing been bounced around for years with no clear vi­sion from min­istry to min­istry.How­ev­er, For­ge­nie said YTEPP start­ed to make a turn­around two years ago.

"Over the last five years, or more specif­i­cal­ly, un­der the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion YTEPP is here to stay. Min­is­ter of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing Fazal Karim has clear­ly ar­tic­u­lat­ed the role of YTEPP. Now that we are part of Gov­ern­ment's strat­e­gy we can plan for the long term."Every year YTEPP trains 7,000 in­di­vid­u­als of which 65 per cent are fe­males."Even though the pro­grammes are male ori­ent­ed, women are dom­i­nat­ing in every sphere. They are tak­ing over."

At a cen­tre in Va­len­cia, For­ge­nie said they ob­served that sev­er­al par­ents brought their chil­dren to class­es.In a bid to lend a help­ing hand, YTEPP sought the ser­vices of a day care cen­tre in the com­mu­ni­ty where the chil­dren are kept while their par­ents at­tend class­es.Once the par­ents at­tend class­es, For­ge­nie said, YTEPP pays half of the fees to the day care."This is just an in­cen­tive to learn. It has opened up a new di­men­sion for the youth, in par­tic­u­lar sin­gle moth­ers to gain train­ing and ex­per­tise."

Turn­ing lives around

To go a step fur­ther, YTEPP al­so em­barked on the Joy of Liv­ing pro­gramme last year af­ter re­al­is­ing that sev­er­al of its trainees were faced with fam­i­ly and fi­nan­cial prob­lems.At least sev­en trainees who were on the brink of com­mit­ting sui­cide, For­ge­nie said, were able to turn their lives around af­ter be­ing coun­selled.At one cor­ner of For­ge­nie's desk were sev­er­al "Thank You" cards from stu­dents who have turned their lives around and are now suc­cess sto­ries.

"We pro­vide train­ing with the nec­es­sary sup­port to help them through that dif­fi­cult pe­ri­od. We've had to hire coun­sel­lors to treat with prob­lems such as in­cest, rape and abuse. A lot of young peo­ple go through this and they suf­fer on their own. It is not as a re­sult of any­thing we have done." It is as a re­sult of­fam­i­ly cir­cum­stances, he not­ed.For­ge­nie said when one stu­dent takes his/her life it dis­rupts an en­tire class.

Every oth­er Sat­ur­day trainees who are faced with chal­lenges are coun­selled in St Au­gus­tine.For­ge­nie was al­so the brain­child be­hind the 2008 YTEPP Fu­ture Lead­ers Pro­gramme which in­volves ex­pos­ing coun­cil pres­i­dents from each YTEPP cen­tre to high lev­el qual­i­ty lead­er­ship train­ing to im­prove self-im­age and equip them to pos­i­tive­ly im­pact their fam­i­lies, cen­tres, com­mu­ni­ties and work places.

An­oth­er pos­i­tive in­ter­ven­tion is YTEPP's en­rol­ment of 893 pris­on­ers in its Re­ha­bil­i­tat­ing In­mates Through Train­ing and Re­train­ing Pro­gramme, which was de­vel­oped in 2006.So far, For­ge­nie said, 692 pris­on­ers have grad­u­at­ed from the pro­gramme which YTEPP wants to ex­pand in 2014.In­mates are paid a dai­ly stipend of $60.Each in­mate leaves the prison sys­tem with $3,000 in his pock­et for re-in­te­grat­ing in­to so­ci­ety.

For­ge­nie spoke about one pris­on­er who fell in love with the grow box project and up­on his re­lease opened a co-op­er­a­tive with his fel­low in­mates, which has turned in­to a suc­cess­ful busi­ness."If you find mean­ing­ful em­ploy­ment, then there is a slim­mer chance for them to re-of­fend and end up back in prison. A lot of them re-of­fend be­cause there is no sup­port op­por­tu­ni­ties. The pro­gramme is de­signed to re­duce re­cidi­vism. Train­ing alone can not do it. There has to be sup­port from the out­side."

For­ge­nie: I faced stig­ma­ti­sa­tion grow­ing up

Grow­ing up in a San Fer­nan­do com­mu­ni­ty, which he de­scribed as a "ghet­to", Nigel For­ge­nie was stereo­typed and stig­ma­tised by so­ci­ety."No girl want­ed to date me be­cause of the area I lived in. I couldn't even get a job. I had to change my ad­dress to be­come em­ploy­able."As a young man, For­ge­nie lacked self es­teem and con­fi­dence, hence the rea­son why he could re­late to many of the trainees in YTEPP's pro­grammes.

He of­ten felt he was not good enough, un­til one of his teach­ers, Eileen Joseph, told him he need­ed to un­leash his po­ten­tial.For­ge­nie re­mem­bered sac­ri­fic­ing his study time to make belts, which he sold to his school­mates to earn a liv­ing."I've had my fair share of strug­gles. But I was able to over­come it."For­ge­nie said Joseph en­cour­aged him to pur­sue his O' and A'Lev­el ex­ams and even mo­ti­vat­ed him to en­rol for his Mas­ters in Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion at UWI.

When For­ge­nie be­came the gen­er­al man­ag­er of the San Fer­nan­do Com­mu­ni­ty Cred­it Union, its as­sets stood at $21 mil­lion.In 18 months' time, For­ge­nie said he dou­bled the cred­it union's as­sets to $49.5 mil­lion.