Chil­dren from dif­fer­ent walks of life beamed with pride as var­i­ous heads of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty praised their good work yes­ter­day. The chil­dren who par­tic­i­pat­ed in The Bask­it Project–Ba­sic Skills Train­ing in Gen­er­al Con­struc­tion and In­te­ri­or De­sign–screamed when they were told they did well on the hous­es they built at The Po­lice Bar­racks, St James. Wear­ing colours rep­re­sent­ing their teams such as green for the Pris­ons Ser­vice, called Chateau de Rougi­er, they took their lead­ers on tour with them.

They had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in the camp host­ed by En To To, a non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion, in con­junc­tion with the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry. Each team built a wood­en house which in­clud­ed a faucet with run­ning wa­ter. Michael Black­man, co-founder and di­rec­tor of En To To, said the or­gan­i­sa­tion has been in­volved in so­cial work for the last four years. He said The Bask­it Project helped to em­pow­er chil­dren to help with re­pairs around the house but al­so to change their lives and val­ue sys­tem.

In the camp there were chil­dren from the Youth Train­ing Cen­tre, Rain­bow Res­cue and the St Jude's Home for Girls. "To­geth­er every­one achieves the mis­sion," he said. "They have learnt to ap­pre­ci­ate the re­al­i­ty of each oth­er's ex­pe­ri­ence. They do not feel they are above form­ing re­la­tion­ships with oth­ers who may not be as for­tu­nate as they are." Guid­ance coun­sel­lors, child psy­chol­o­gists, and mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­ers in­ter­act­ed with chil­dren in the camp. Sport was al­so in­clud­ed.

–Malis­sa Lara