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UNICEFs representative for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean Jean Gough addresses the participants at the August 24 to 26 workshop. |
Basseterre, St. Kitts (August 28, 2005): Key stakeholders of the PANCAP/CYA Mini-Grant Programme are excited by the implementation of the project in St. Kitts and Nevis.
The programme seeks to build the capacity of young people from the region to develop projects to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic in their society. Sessions began with module 1 a three-day community resource-mapping workshop at the Lodge community centre.
Thirty-five enthusiastic young people participated and produced maps of the Saddlers, Molineaux to Phillips, Lodge and Ottleys communities. Data on recreational, social, entrepreneurial and religious structures were compiled and included on the map. It also featured population estimates of youths and family makeup. Basseterre will also be mapped and included in the exercise.
The data collected is to be used by persons at two follow-up workshops on HIV/AIDS sensitization and proposal development writing module 2 and 3 of the programme. At these sessions, approximately 30 youth-led group members will be trained to lead their respective organizations in developing projects to combat the HIV/AIDS disease.
CARICOM will make US$5,000.00 available to fund selected projects, with a matching total from the United Nation Childrens Fund (UNICEF).
UNICEFs representative for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean Jean Gough was in St. Kitts for the August 24 to 26 workshop. She told SKNIS that her organization is also providing technical assistance and commended St. Kitts and Nevis efforts to implement the Mini-Grant programme.
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CARICOM Youth Ambassador (CYA) Kendall Elva of St. Lucia (right) looks on during mapping review of Saddlers by Cherrilyn Warde Crawford. |
I think it has been very useful. It has been a very good (and) intense workshop, she disclosed. I was able to get a first hand impression of the difficulties that communities face. & We went into the communities and (discovered) that there are a lot of social issues that require special attention.
I think young people have a lot of potential (and) we need to engage the energy, that they have, positively. & through initiatives like these, they will become (more) aware of the problems in the community and they themselves will take control and help to solve the problems.
That is why we are intensely involved with young people in order to get them to see the problems and try to be part of the solution, the UNICEF official disclosed.
Ms. Gough indicated that the persons who did the community mapping received a high level of cooperation from the public.
CARICOM Youth Ambassador (CYA) Kendall Elva of St. Lucia credited the public relations campaign of the technical working group (TWG local organizing body) for the positive response from the interviewees.
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Julian Bradshaw explains a detailed map of the Molineaux to Phillip's region. |
St. Lucia is first to pilot the Mini-Grant programme and is followed by St. Kitts. Six other Caribbean countries are a part of this initiative. Elva served as a resource person during the training here on island. He stressed the importance of this project taking into account that the Caribbean (in terms of density) has the second highest rate of incidence of HIV/AIDS behind Sub-Saharan Africa.
This point, he said, was driven home to participants during the testing of the HIV/AIDS sensitization module in St. Lucia.
The participants (in St. Lucia) were very much alarmed and surprised by some of the information they received from this module especially in the area of the global and regional situation of HIV/AIDS, the CYA stated. The numbers are very high and that allowed them to conceptualize why we are implementing the Mini-Grant programme & given that HIV/AIDS (impacts the) socio-economic conditions we are going to face in the Caribbean.
A spokesperson for the TWG indicated that preparations are being made to implement modules 2 and 3 as soon as possible. Interested persons are asked to contact the Youth Department at 465-2521 ext 1393 for additional information.
