Laventille NGO to help youths stay out of trouble

Laventille NGO – We Are The Change – has launched the Akil Phillips Foundation which would track and encourage youths to be productive and stay out of trouble.

The group’s founder, Candace Phillip, a teacher at St Barbs Government Primary School, explained that members of the community were tired of losing their youths and decided to do something about it.

Akil Phillips, 16, was a student of St Anthony's College who was attacked, robbed of his Samsung J5 and murdered outside his grandmother’s Laventille home on the night of April 5.

Speaking to Newsday after it’s anti-crime rally, on Saturday afternoon, Phillip said the foundation would like to start with the Russell Latapy Secondary School, or another school in the Morvant/Laventille area, and hopefully expand with the assistance of other NGOs, government, or corporate sponsors.

Laventille West MP Fitzgerald Hinds said he intended to assist in any way possible, including keeping in constant contact with law enforcement, and using any information and intelligence to root out the criminal elements causing stress in the community.