Malis­sa Lara-Pat­ter­son

It may not be gift-wrapped, but giv­ing young of­fend­ers a sec­ond chance will prove to be a wor­thy, life-long present this Christ­mas.Stores man­ag­er, Hol­lis Besson, of West Bees Su­per­mar­ket in Diego Mar­tin said they hire lads in or­der to help re­form them.West Bees, which opened three years ago, de­cid­ed to take their so­cial/cor­po­rate re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in the com­mu­ni­ty se­ri­ous­ly by em­ploy­ing lads from the Youth Train­ing Cen­tre (YTC) and from the St Michael's School for Boys through­out this year. "We start­ed hir­ing two years ago," Besson said."Any­thing to re­move the com­mu­ni­ty out of a vi­o­lent state." Some of the YTC lads were part of a Grow­ing Lead­ers Foun­da­tion (GLF) Train­ing Pro­gramme this year and were all ex­cit­ed to show their train­ers that they could be pro­duc­tive in the work­place.The Foun­da­tion be­lieves that cor­po­rate T&T can play a great role in as­sist­ing these young peo­ple to re­build their con­fi­dence. "The key to the suc­cess of the boys is sim­ply build­ing their con­fi­dence. Yes, they have made mis­takes but they are learn­ing through some in­cred­i­ble work be­ing done with them at the fa­cil­i­ty that their fail­ures do not de­fine their fu­ture," said GLF founder Sal­ly Ann Del­la Casa.

"And with this strength­en­ing of their hearts and mind and un­der­stand­ing that they too can be­come lead­ers in so­ci­ety, they are poised to flour­ish if giv­en the right sup­port and op­por­tu­ni­ties," Del­la Casa added.Besson gave an ex­am­ple, stat­ing that one young man they hired be­came in­volved in crime af­ter work­ing at the su­per­mar­ket. His moth­er plead­ed with West Bees re-hire him.Besson said they re­hired him and helped him to be­come more pos­i­tive."They use our busi­ness as a step­ping stone," Besson said.The su­per­mar­ket al­so spread the Christ­mas spir­it with­in YTC's walls this month and de­liv­ered more than 20 im­port­ed vanil­la hol­i­day cakes.It's not just young of­fend­ers who are giv­en a chance to prove their worth but al­so the dis­abled com­mu­ni­ty.The su­per­mar­ket has hired those who are deaf/mute. Besson said those who can speak have learnt to com­mu­ni­cate with them.Besson said they help once they be­lieve there will be a ben­e­fit to the peo­ple.

Cor­po­rate help

Del­la Casa said the key now was for com­pa­nies to re­al­ly play a ma­jor role pro­vid­ing in­tern­ships to the boys while they are still at the fa­cil­i­ty. "Talk­ing to the boys about how to make it is one thing but show­ing them they can, is an­oth­er," she added. "These boys can be placed in in­tern­ships for at least three to six months be­fore they leave YTC so they know they can hold jobs which builds their con­fi­dence, plus they leave hav­ing a bank ac­count and some mon­ey in the bank... "Well, these boys may just make it."