A youth advocate has urged the creation of a single national framework to help young people identify, access and navigate government-supported opportunities, warning that programmes are too fragmented for many to find a clear path after leaving school.
Speaking at the St Andrews Ideas Forum on Thursday at the Alleyne School, social worker Natalie Murray suggested there was no shortage of programmes for young people, but they were scattered across different agencies, making it difficult for young people to find the right opportunities.
She said: “The idea is simple: connect what exists, identify who may be missing, reach them earlier, help them navigate the opportunity, measure whether they succeed. It’s not about determining a young person’s future.
“It’s about making sure that whether that young person’s pathway is university, technical training, apprenticeship, employment, entrepreneurship, agriculture, technology, the creative industries, community leadership, or another productive pathway, they can see somewhere to go next.”
Murray called for a single online portal where young people could find programmes offered across government.
“We have so many young people who cannot find that pathway, it’s not there. We have so many programmes when I was doing this research. I was like, where are all these things that exist, but you know what the problem is? Some under labour, some under youth, some under education, they scattered all over the place and young people don’t know how to find these programmes.”
She also wants youth transition planning to begin six months to a year before students leave school.
“We just had a lot of young people who leave school and some of them are not engaged in anything, not that they are not programmes. There are programmes, but who is sitting down with that young person six months or one year before they leave school and say, let’s plan a pathway for you.”
Murray said young people could pursue opportunities in areas including the Defence Force, sport, entrepreneurship and the creative industries.
“The Defence Force sports programme is coming back…we have the creative industry that’s a pathway, you wanna do entrepreneurship, we have a lot of programmes that’s a pathway.”
She also proposed a database to track young people after leaving school.
“I also think that we should be able to track all of our young people so that if something happens, we should be able to there should be a database with every young person who leaving school that you will be able to track these young persons to see what’s happening.”
Murray highlighted the 19 to 29 age group, saying some young people are currently “disconnected”.
“We need to get those young people back in, and I recognise the Ministry of People Empowerment; they have some life coaches. Let’s go and find these young people. Let us find these young people and work with these young people and get them back to being productive citizens in Barbados, and if you look at the age group of the young people who are getting involved in trouble are those young persons who did not find a pathway.”
She also said transition planning could help direct young people towards psychosocial support where needed.
“Sometimes it’s not that the young person doesn’t wanna be productive, but we have to admit that some of our young people have mental illness issues, and if we have transition and planning, we will be able to put that young person in the direction where they can get the psychosocial support that they need so they can get back on track.”
Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who read the proposal, supported it, saying it accords with government policy, but stressed that Barbadians also need to step up as mentors.
Mia Mottley
“We are still going to need Bajans to step up to the plate. I need Bajans all across. If we are going to insist on the 60 hours that you want to do, and it’s going to be part of the core curriculum so that people are exposed, kids are exposed to different opportunities, disciplines, talents, everything, whether they choose to go into cadets, scouts, Sea Cadets, Sea Scouts, Brownies, Girl Guides, [Inter-school Christian Fellowship], Key Club, cricket, netball, culture – are you getting the point? It can only happen if we have sufficient adult mentors.”
Mottley reiterated her call to build a Barbados for young people while ensuring older people are cared for.
“We must ensure that our older people are well taken care of in this Barbados but we are building the Barbados for who? For the young people, and if the young people don’t stay here, or if the young people don’t value what they have here, then the country cannot move to the next level.”
She said successful initiatives must be scaled nationally rather than remaining isolated programmes.
“We have become expert in talking about a little something there and a little something there and a little something over there and yes, the people who did it deserve praise and you don’t want to diminish it, but at the end of the day you can’t transform this nation unless that little something there and that little something there and that little something there become something big and something that everybody embraces.”
Mottley also stressed the importance of instilling young people with passion and purpose.
“If we don’t instil our young people with passion and purpose, it’s not only about the money; the money gone come, money come sometimes, sometimes it may be a little longer, sometimes it comes quick but what matters and what sustains, and the older heads in this crowd will tell you passion and purpose, values, empathy, caring about people, all the things that we were taught.”
Mottley recalled encountering about 15 young men under a shed in 2017, finding at least 12 had not worked since leaving school and were between 25 and 30 years old.
She said the government must find ways to prevent young people from becoming disconnected after leaving school, noting that a previous Youth Traces survey designed to follow young people had eventually broken down.
Mottley said communities also have a responsibility to help young people navigate life.
“If the people in communities are not spending the time to be able to inculcate the other things that help our young people navigate life, we are not going to win,” she urged, “because we can’t change the things outside; we have a duty to change and anchor the things inside, so that what we do in our house, in our community, in our parish and in our country os shaped by us, not nobody else.”
She called on Barbadians to volunteer their time to help shape young people.
“I want Bajans to give of their time; if you are not giving three-four hours a week to being able to help raise and deal and mould and shape our young people. You are leaving them, us, the rest of us, and the country to face whatever happens by way of serendipity.”
Mottley also called on Minister of Education Transformation Chad Blackman to identify gaps in youth organisations so those opportunities could be publicised through the media and Barbadians encouraged to volunteer. (LG)
