DYS Reaches Out to Incarcerated Youth

Kevin Bernard

As we said, Minister of Home Affairs Kareem Musa was not at the Belize Central Prison alone.  Also present were members of the Belize Police Department, community, and the Department of Youth Services.  The DYS has agreed to engage these young men for the next two weeks in an attempt to create positive change in their lives.

Kevin Bernard, Minister of Youth

“What we have come to do today is to reach out to these young men, not only here, it is going to happen out in the community as well. That is one of the things that the Department of Youth Service, through the support from UNHCR and UNICEF, in terms of using cure violence method, going out into the community, talk to these people, talk to the families, to the parents, to the business community and see how we can turn this thing around. I think it critical that we come, as the Minister in charge of youth, the Department of Youth Service, the Director said they wanted to come in and offer these guys a two weeks work shop training while these guys are here under the SOE, to hear from them. There are two areas that will be directed, conflict management and behavior modification services. And, the health and wellness and counseling services that the teams from the Department will conduct discussions, one on one discussions to see exactly what are the challenges that they are facing, why is it that we always hear that this person can’t go out in this area. We are all Belizeans. They are all young black men in this community.”