BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – ALICIA COLLINS continues to make a difference in the lives of young people in the Saddlers community with her recently formed youth group, ‘Save Our Youths At Risk’ (SOYAR).
She is currently hosting a UNESCO Small Island Voices funded two-week youth camp at the Saddlers Primary School.
Collins, who is fondly known as Diana, said as she looked at the community she realised that children are exposed to things that were alien to their parents during their formative years.
She noted that drug dealings, murders and gang violence are at an alarming rate and it is fearful when children do not speak about anything else but crime.
This is not the first group established by Collins. She started the Boys At Risk group last year, where she got persons who may have been heading towards a negative path to seek positive ways in life and get employed on the Youth Empowerment through Skills (YES) programme.
“For the past couple of years, I’ve been trying along with other young persons to get youths on the positive track. Many persons want to do stuff but they are shy, but youths are my passion. So if it means I will have to lead, I will lead. While being a leader, I will have to create that space and atmosphere to encourage other young persons to lead.
“I will not be here all the time. I have to create the space and motivate young persons to become leaders; someone should be able to continue after I’m gone. I think that’s why so many community clubs break up, because there’s only one or two persons who are looked to, to organise everything,” she said.
Collins believes the problem could be solved if they could motivate others to be leaders.
“This is a movement, not just a group. When you hear movement, we have to come up with dynamic stuff to keep children involved…what worked 20 years ago will not work today,” she said.
She said the camp would be held under the theme, “Making Peace with the Environment”.
The camp would be interactive, according to Collins, who said that it would be a learning of shared information between the facilitators and attendees.
There will be sessions with police officers who work with gangs, and these will highlight how the children feel about crime and gangs. Nurses will speak to them about personal hygiene and other health issues, while a beach clean-up exercise is scheduled for Friday (Aug. 20) at a popular area in Frigate Bay.
“It is not just about peace among ourselves, but peace with the environment,” she said.
Collins said SOYAR was created to target the boys who are usually at the forefront of gang violence and crime.
“However, girls have also joined and we have to save our girls too, so they will grow up to be good Parents,” she added.
She plans to continue activities throughout the year after the camp ends.
“Sometimes I look at the way things are going and I cry. Sometimes there are young persons who really want to make a difference but because the older people don’t support us, by not showing the love or willingly step up and give advice, they feel discouraged. The communities are so segregated and divided, when you try to do something people are saying, ‘Oh she is playing a boss or she playing a leader.’ But nobody is doing it! Once the space is there for me to do something and there are young persons who want to help, I will be doing something.”
She had the opportunity of attending a workshop last week in St. Vincent, which was held under the theme “Good Governance”.
She said they looked at governance from the political, family and community perspectives.
Collins extends special thanks to all those who helped with SOYAR, including UNESCO; Antonio Maynard; Myrtle Tweed-Stevens; the young persons who stepped up to be a part of SOYAR; and high school volunteers Tia Hewitt, Taniqua Collins, Yashida Matthew and Onika Hewitt.
