Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says that men­tor­ing can im­pact so­ci­ety in a pro­found way.Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the state­ment yes­ter­day at the launch of the Na­tion­al Men­tor­ing Pro­gramme at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA, Port-of-Spain.The pro­gramme was es­tab­lished in Oc­to­ber last year by an in­ter-min­is­te­r­i­al com­mit­tee, com­pris­ing the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, the Min­istry of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs and the Min­istry of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "This pro­gramme is an eco­nom­ic and ef­fi­cient strat­e­gy in as­sist­ing the youth of T&T in holis­tic de­vel­op­ment."Glob­al­ly, the eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits of in­vest­ing in chil­dren, es­pe­cial­ly at risk chil­dren is well doc­u­ment­ed."By ful­ly in­vest­ing to­day in youth, who are in dan­ger of falling in­to a life of crime, we will en­sure the well-be­ing and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty of fu­ture gen­er­a­tions."The pro­gramme would be based in cen­tres across T&T, in­clud­ing the Ch­agua­nas Re­gion­al Com­plex, Wood­brook Youth Fa­cil­i­ty, Port-of-Spain, Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um, Ari­ma, Bethel/Ply­mouth Youth Cen­tre and a venue in South Trinidad, yet to be de­cid­ed up­on."The first phase of men­tor-train­ing will be­gin on May 25 and 170 men­tors al­ready have been screen for the pro­gramme," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

She said men­tors would be trained in a wide range of top­ics, in­clud­ing life skills and would help mentees with so­cial prob­lems they may face.Un­der the pro­gramme men­tors are matched with mentees de­pend­ing on spe­cif­ic needs and re­la­tion­ships.

Men­tor­ing ses­sions are to be held in men­tor­ing cen­tres with the su­per­vi­sion of mon­i­tor­ing of­fi­cers, with planned so­cial ac­tiv­i­ties."The re­al­i­ty is that we will nev­er be able to turn around our crime sit­u­a­tion un­less these at risk youths are giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to change the stig­ma that is at­tached to them," she added.Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the pro­gramme would as­sist by giv­ing that group, the love, care and the knowl­edge that some­one be­lieved in their abil­i­ty to change.She al­so en­cour­aged the cit­i­zens of T&T to get in­volved in the pro­gramme, run by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and to lend sup­port to it. (DA)