Kali­fa Clyne

Me­di­a­tion and the abil­i­ty to solve prob­lems are nec­es­sary life skills young peo­ple must de­vel­op to ma­noeu­vre suc­cess­ful­ly in so­ci­ety.So said deputy chair­man of the Me­di­a­tion Board, Jus­tice Bet­sy-Ann Lam­bert Pe­ter­son as she ad­dressed stu­dents dur­ing the Me­di­a­tion Board's first an­nu­al art com­pe­ti­tion prize-giv­ing cer­e­mo­ny.The cer­e­mo­ny took place yes­ter­day at the Na­tion­al Li­brary and In­for­ma­tion Sys­tems (Nalis), Port-of-Spain.

Win­ners of the com­pe­ti­tion were Khalee Kav­inash Ali (eight-11 years cat­e­go­ry); Ro­han Ash­ton Kur­banali (sev­en and un­der); Nicole Tang (15-18 years) and Bryan Jor­don (12-14 years).Lam­bert Pe­ter­son told stu­dents and par­ents the abil­i­ty for young peo­ple to nav­i­gate the twist and turns in life was crit­i­cal to the de­vel­op­ment of the na­tion.She said the Me­di­a­tion Board felt it was im­por­tant that T&T's youth recog­nised non-ad­ver­sar­i­al meth­ods of prob­lem-solv­ing were nec­es­sary.

She said peo­ple used meth­ods of me­di­a­tion every day with­out even re­al­is­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly par­ents and teach­ers.Chair­man of the Me­di­a­tion Board, Vasheist Koko­ram, said the board had con­fi­dence the youths of T&T could find a path to peace when con­flicts arose.He en­cour­aged the stu­dents to em­ploy meth­ods of peace­ful con­flict res­o­lu­tion through­out their lives and en­cour­aged them to build on their artis­tic cre­ations.

The com­pe­ti­tion, which was open to both pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools and en­cour­aged stu­dents to cre­ate art­work based on the theme, "Me­di­a­tion-The So­lu­tion," is the first of a week of ac­tiv­i­ties to cel­e­brate Me­di­a­tion Week.