BASSETERRE ST. KITTS (December 3, 2009) - A beneficiary of the Youth Empowerment through Skills (YES) programme has said that while the purpose of creating the programme was to help idle youth to acquire a skill and ultimately a steady job, it is benefitting them beyond their expectations.
Twenty-nine-year-old Patrick Pemberton of Trafalgar said in an interview last week that the programme came in at a time when the world was starting to go through its worst recession in decades, which left a number of persons including himself laid off from their jobs.
“The YES Programme has turned out to be a kind of a stimulus package to the economy,” said Pemberton. “In the USA their president went out explicitly to shore up their economy with hefty stimulus packages. Our Prime Minister, Dr Denzil Douglas, being mindful of the plight of the youth, started the YES Programme, which has ended up being a stimulus package for our small economy.”
According to Pemberton, who is training as a carpenter/joiner at the Allan Herbert Furniture Shop on Central Street/Prickley Pear Lane, the programme had a visionary component at the same time, as it has also addressed the direct effects of the economic slowdown.
“I worked previously as a carpenter but when business slowed down, I was laid off,” he said. “I did not have enough experience to get another job or even to start anything on my own. But since I joined the YES Programme, I am now well trained and will be able to get a job anywhere or even start my own little furniture shop.”
He pointed out that when Government started the YES Programme, the full impact of the world recession had not hit. Now it has and many people have since been laid off from their jobs and the YES Programme has taken in most of them. “This was a visionary move by our Government, as it has helped to shore up a number of businesses as well,” he concluded.
His tutor, and owner/manager of the furniture shop, Allan Herbert, confirmed what his student said by observing that after the launch of the YES Programme, he was given five students to train, and each was being catered for by the government by way of a weekly stipend of $300.00.
“The training has been most successful,” said Herbert who has been managing the family business since 1982 after he left college. “When they first came here, they did not have any experience at all. We have been here now for about nine months and I have seen some great improvement in the young men from the YES Programme.”
He pointed out that since they came with no experience at all, he had to teach them the basics, both practical and theory in the work-field of carpentry and joinery. The young men have not let him down as they soaked in most of the skills he has been passing on to them and at the end of it they are able to work with very little supervision.
With the experience that they have so far gained, he has been contracted by government to repair a number of community centres on the island. It is his belief that were it not for the YES Programme students, he would not have been given the contract as the government was looking out for an avenue to have the young men fully trained.
