With approximately $60M being expended monthly on the Youth Entrepreneurship and Apprenticeship Programme (YEAP), Minister of Indigenous People’s Affairs, Sydney Allicock, has criticised the initiative, which he said, did not aid in community development, instead it undertook political work at the behest of the former government.
GINA said that under the YEAP initiative, Indigenous youths, within the age bracket 18-40 years in the various hinterland villages and communities, were supposed to benefit from technical and governance training, to support their performance as Community Support Officers (CSOs) in village development.
It was also pointed out that the there is rich, raw talent for sports in the Indigenous communities, especially in the area of football. For the past two years, the Waramadong Secondary School placed second in the Digicel National Football Competition.
The Minister noted that whilst the talent is there what has been lacking for the team is the technical know-how. To this end, as part of this new agenda of having well developed Indigenous youths, the Ministry is working in collaboration with Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to provide financial, and technical support in terms of guidance and coaching to Indigenous communities for sport development. The goal is to provide the support, and also ensure exposure to the big stage as is required to mould these talents.
Whilst in Waramadong, the team also attended the 12th Graduation Exercise of the Waramadong Secondary School at which Minister Allicock delivered the feature address.
