In­ter­na­tion­al Game Tech­nol­o­gy (IGT) host­ed a Men­tor­ship Morn­ing at the Rain­bow Res­cue Home as a spe­cial event in recog­ni­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Men’s Day this month.

The 14 boys res­i­dent at the home, rang­ing from ages 11 to 17, spent the morn­ing learn­ing first-hand about a ca­reer in tech­nol­o­gy from em­ploy­ees of the glob­al tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny.

“In­ter­na­tion­al Men’s Day pro­vid­ed a great op­por­tu­ni­ty for us to high­light the im­por­tance of men­tor­ship in the lives of young men, es­pe­cial­ly for those who may not al­ready have strong male role mod­els,” said Dex­ter Thomas, IGT gen­er­al man­ag­er in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“Af­ter to­day, we hope that the boys at Rain­bow Res­cue will be in­spired to ex­plore ca­reers in tech­nol­o­gy, but the men­tor­ship ac­tiv­i­ties are al­so broad­ly geared to­wards reach­ing our young men on a deep­er lev­el, nur­tur­ing crit­i­cal life skills and in­still­ing con­fi­dence in their fu­ture.”

For over two decades, Rain­bow Res­cue has pro­vid­ed a safe home for so­cial­ly dis­placed boys, nur­tur­ing these youth in a car­ing en­vi­ron­ment with pro­fes­sion­al guid­ance.

The home is a re­cip­i­ent of one of IGT’s Af­ter School Ad­van­tage (ASA) cen­tres in Trinidad and To­ba­go, there­fore ben­e­fit­ing from the com­pa­ny’s flag­ship com­mu­ni­ty ini­tia­tive that pro­vides youth with ac­cess to tech­nol­o­gy and STEM ed­u­ca­tion op­por­tu­ni­ties.

The morn­ing in­clud­ed mo­ti­va­tion­al ca­reer talks and skills-build­ing ac­tiv­i­ties.

Un­der the guid­ance of IGT’s men­tors, the boys learned how to as­sem­ble and dis­as­sem­ble the com­po­nents of a com­put­er.

The men­tors and mentees al­so worked to­geth­er to cre­ate a kitchen gar­den for the home.

“Our mis­sion at Rain­bow Res­cue is to help our boys reach their fullest po­ten­tial, cre­at­ing new op­por­tu­ni­ties to over­come the chal­lenges of the past,” said Kir­win Samuel, Rain­bow Res­cue op­er­a­tions man­ag­er.

“Oth­er than me, most of the sup­port in their lives comes from women, and of­ten their past

with men were not the best.

“Through IGT’s men­tor­ship, we have pos­i­tive male role mod­els vis­it­ing and say­ing, ‘We are here for you.’ This is the kind of sup­port our young men need to set them on the right path.”

Fu­ture men­tor­ship ses­sions will of­fer the boys more ad­vanced train­ing in com­put­er op­er­a­tions. IGT al­so in­tends to ex­tend men­tor­ship op­por­tu­ni­ties to more of the youth in its ASA pro­gramme.

There are cur­rent­ly 18 non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tions, in­clud­ing sev­er­al chil­dren’s homes, sup­port­ed by IGT’s ASA pro­gramme in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

ASA is the com­pa­ny’s flag­ship com­mu­ni­ty ini­tia­tive, de­vot­ed to pro­vid­ing youth with ac­cess to tech­nol­o­gy at dig­i­tal learn­ing cen­tres in com­mu­ni­ties where IGT op­er­ates.

The pro­gramme en­sures stu­dents have ac­cess to par­tic­i­pate in sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, en­gi­neer­ing and math (STEM) ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties while de­vel­op­ing the knowl­edge and skills for the jobs of to­mor­row.

Since 2011, IGT and its sub­sidiaries have opened 40 ASA com­put­er labs across the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean.

As part of the com­pa­ny’s on­go­ing com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing its glob­al com­mu­ni­ties, IGT aims to con­tin­u­al­ly en­hance the tech­no­log­i­cal aware­ness of stu­dents.