60 Bethel youths taught skills

KINNESHA GEORGE-HARRY

Paper art, baking, confectionery-making, small-appliance repair, sewing, cellphone repair and the art of DJing were just some of the skills that 60 young people from the Bethel area learned at a three-week vacation camp recently.

In all, 60 children participated in the camp, hosted by the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) Division of Sport and Youth Affairs, at the Bethel Youth Development Centre.

Youth centre co-ordinator Janice McMillan said, “This year, we had a variety of activities, and the young people have enjoyed it so much.

"Everyone is crying out that they don’t have money, but one of the things that they did was learn to be entrepreneurs, as they went out and sold what they made: the bene cakes, sugar cakes, mangoes.

"As always, my hope is that they would use this opportunity and further develop themselves, make a career out of it and make some money because money makes the world go around.”

Youth programme co-ordinator Julien Skeete said: “Within the Youth Affairs department, we continue to remain firmly committed to youth development and looking at all possible aspects and complements that contribute to the positive engagement of our young people and therefore, like any of the programmes that we offer in a developmental context, the summer camp is no different at that. It seeks to identify and bring out a number of the skills and the abilities that they have as young persons.”

One camper, Mary Marcelle, said: “Camp for me was very exciting. Baking for me was the easiest thing and I like it.”

Iako McMillan said: “Camp was exciting because I got to interact with some new people and learnt new things, things that I didn’t even know I could do like sewing and baking.”

Julice Gardiner and Elijah Roberts participated in the small appliance class and fixed

microwaves for several villagers.

Gardiner said: “We found small appliances a little easier, because we learnt to fix microwaves in different ways.”

Roberts said: “Small appliances was very easy to me, and I got to dig up in stuff and repair them to make it work, and that was interesting.”

The camp ended last Friday.