RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

For six years, Lawrence Ar­joon has watched young peo­ple walk through the doors of the He­roes Foun­da­tion car­ry­ing bur­dens many adults would strug­gle to bear.

Some ar­rived un­cer­tain of who they were. Oth­ers were grap­pling with trau­ma, fam­i­ly chal­lenges, mi­gra­tion, ex­clu­sion and self-doubt. Many had nev­er been asked what they thought, much less en­cour­aged to speak.

To­day, as Ar­joon pre­pares to step down as chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer and tran­si­tion in­to a new role as di­rec­tor of Strate­gic Trans­for­ma­tion, he says the great­est achieve­ment of his tenure has not been a pro­gramme, a part­ner­ship or a pol­i­cy vic­to­ry—it has been help­ing young peo­ple find their voice.

“With­out a doubt, help­ing more young peo­ple re­alise that their voice mat­ters,” Ar­joon said when asked about his proud­est achieve­ment.

“Too of­ten, adults talk about young peo­ple with­out talk­ing with young peo­ple,” he added.

Ar­joon said that for him, youth de­vel­op­ment is as much about in­clu­sion and be­long­ing as it is about ed­u­ca­tion and em­ploy­ment. “It is about en­sur­ing young peo­ple feel seen, heard and val­ued,” he ex­plained.

“One of the things we’ve worked hard to do is cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for young peo­ple to en­gage di­rect­ly with de­ci­sion-mak­ers, lead­ers and in­sti­tu­tions, not so that we can speak on their be­half, but so that they can speak for them­selves,” he said.

The re­sults, he said, have been trans­for­ma­tive.

“Watch­ing young peo­ple go from sit­ting qui­et­ly in the back of a room to con­fi­dent­ly shar­ing their ideas, ad­vo­cat­ing for change, and in­flu­enc­ing con­ver­sa­tions that af­fect their lives has been one of the great­est priv­i­leges of my ca­reer.”

He not­ed that the im­pact has been felt among both lo­cal and mi­grant youth.

Over the past six years, the He­roes Foun­da­tion di­rect­ly en­gaged 1,424 young peo­ple through its de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes, in­clud­ing 862 Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als and 562 mi­grant youths. Ar­joon said many of the mi­grant par­tic­i­pants were Venezue­lans who ar­rived in the coun­try af­ter flee­ing eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal tur­moil.

Their ex­pe­ri­ences, Ar­joon said, helped shape the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s work.

“They’ve brought re­silience, de­ter­mi­na­tion, lead­er­ship and per­spec­tives that have en­riched our pro­grammes and strength­ened our un­der­stand­ing of what it means to over­come ad­ver­si­ty.”

Many ar­rived car­ry­ing emo­tion­al scars from dis­place­ment and un­cer­tain­ty.

“Many have ex­pe­ri­enced sig­nif­i­cant dis­rup­tion, un­cer­tain­ty and hard­ship in their lives, yet they con­tin­ue to show up, learn, con­tribute and sup­port oth­ers. I think there is a lot we can learn from that re­silience.”

He said it was these re­al­i­ties that led He­roes, with sup­port from UNICEF East­ern Caribbean, to re­design its cur­ricu­lum in 2021 and adopt a more trau­ma-in­formed ap­proach to youth de­vel­op­ment.

“The part­ner­ship brought glob­al ex­per­tise, ev­i­dence and best prac­tice in­to the cur­ricu­lum de­vel­op­ment process,” Ar­joon ex­plained.

“One of the biggest shifts was mov­ing to­wards a more struc­tured trau­ma-in­formed, rights-based and strengths-based ap­proach. It chal­lenged us to think more deeply about the ex­pe­ri­ences young peo­ple bring with them, the bar­ri­ers they face, and how we can build on their strengths rather than sim­ply fo­cus on their chal­lenges.”

The shift proved crit­i­cal as He­roes ex­pand­ed its work with mi­grant chil­dren.

Rather than see­ing trau­ma as a defin­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic, Ar­joon said the or­gan­i­sa­tion sought to help young peo­ple recog­nise their strengths and po­ten­tial.

The foun­da­tion dis­cov­ered that lo­cal and mi­grant youths of­ten shared more sim­i­lar­i­ties than dif­fer­ences, he added.

“The biggest chal­lenge was over­com­ing mis­con­cep­tions,” he said.

“When we start­ed, there was a lot of mis­un­der­stand­ing and some­times xeno­pho­bia.”

Yet when young peo­ple were brought to­geth­er, bar­ri­ers quick­ly dis­solved.

“What we found, how­ev­er, was that lo­cal and mi­grant young peo­ple face many of the same chal­lenges, have many of the same hopes, and want many of the same things from life.”

Through ini­tia­tives such as Web­Pal, lo­cal and mi­grant youths were paired to­geth­er to learn from each oth­er, prac­tise lan­guage skills and build friend­ships.

Per­haps the most im­por­tant les­son was how read­i­ly young peo­ple em­braced in­clu­sion.

The He­roes Foun­da­tion’s phi­los­o­phy evolved in­to what is now known as the Learn­ing-to-Earn­ing De­vel­op­ment Path­way, a frame­work that views youth de­vel­op­ment as a jour­ney rather than a sin­gle in­ter­ven­tion.

“We al­so recog­nised that many young peo­ple have goals, dreams and as­pi­ra­tions, but of­ten lack the op­por­tu­ni­ties, sup­port and path­ways need­ed to achieve them,” Ar­joon said.

As he pre­pares to leave the CEO’s of­fice, Ar­joon be­lieves the work is more im­por­tant than ever.

“The world is be­com­ing more com­pli­cat­ed,” he said.

“Young peo­ple are deal­ing with men­tal health pres­sures, so­cial me­dia, eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ty, chang­ing work­places and rapid tech­no­log­i­cal change all at the same time.”

His hope is that He­roes con­tin­ues adapt­ing to meet those chal­lenges while keep­ing young peo­ple at the cen­tre of every de­ci­sion.