On Wednesday the 3rd of March, Dion "Mega D" Humphreys and Gene Herbert of the Mega D Youth Foundation in St. Eustatius visited the students of the Youth Development Program in St. Maarten.
Both persons gave motivational speeches during the students’ Social skills class at the Caribbean Institute for Social Education Foundation (CIFSEF). They talked to the youngsters about second chances, the importance of social skills, perseverance, and living purposefully.
In addition, Humphrey and Herbert gave a short presentation of the foundation’s activities in St. Eustatius and urged and encouraged the youngsters to give back to the community.
The program Social Pedagogic Worker (SPW/Care) is aimed at persons who want to work with children. After successful completion of this course, one can work in a daycare, an afternoon school or a foster home with persons within the age group of 0-18 years.
The department/program wants to invite more persons (especially young persons doing well) from the community to deliver motivational speeches and hold workshops on issues in the community such as violence, drugs, HIV/AIDS, active parenting, among other topics.
We plan on linking with the different organizations and institutions to achieve this.
Currently the social and educational program is doing well; the success rate of the pilot courses held before has been high, above 80%, and there are 48 students placed in the preparatory program.
The Social Skills course which we refer to as the preparatory part of the program is held at CIFSEF, where the youngsters are placed for 3 months to work on their social skills. The first set of students is currently in that phase.
We have 23 students who were part of the pilot preparatory program, now in the main part of the program. They are following the courses of PC Repair/SPW1/Front Desk Agent.
The other courses that the program offers are Bartender, Waitress, Room Care Attendant, and Hospitality Security.