RYAN BA­CHOO

Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo paid a vis­it to­day to the St. Jude's Home for Girls, along with Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy, Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

The del­e­ga­tion took part in a spe­cial event ti­tled, “In­spire and Paint”, which is part of a six-month pi­lot project of the UNDP called “Choose Peace”. Choose Peace us­es psy­choso­cial, art and sport in­ter­ven­tions to pro­mote peace with­in com­mu­ni­ties of vul­ner­a­ble youth and aims to trans­form young peo­ple in­to peace am­bas­sadors.

In ad­di­tion to psy­choso­cial work­shops, the project us­es art and sports to cre­ate a semi­for­mal set­ting where ex­perts and dis­tin­guished per­sons can in­ter­act with youth to share in­sights, as well as to en­cour­age and in­spire them.

Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo and Min­is­ter Web­ster-Roy en­gaged with the girls and paint­ed im­ages as­so­ci­at­ed with peace, hope and trans­for­ma­tion.

Ugo Blan­co, the UNDP’s Res­i­dent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive, said the UNDP team was de­light­ed to be part of the Choose Peace jour­ney with the stu­dents at St Jude’s.

“Our or­gan­i­sa­tion has a long his­to­ry in sup­port­ing ini­tia­tives that pro­mote ed­u­ca­tion, gen­der equal­i­ty, and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment,” he ob­served.

“St. Jude’s aligns per­fect­ly with these goals, and we look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing our part­ner­ship to cre­ate a brighter and more eq­ui­table fu­ture for all. St. Jude’s School serves as a bea­con of light, il­lu­mi­nat­ing the path for these girls to reach their full po­ten­tial.”