At risk youths get scholarships

Pitts said the commission was targeting marginalized youths and she hoped some of them would share their problems with the panel. Some of those same youths that Pitts spoke of were already at the House of Culture with the Conscious Youth Development Program. Minister of National Security Carlos Perdomo was handing out eighty scholarships to at- risk youths who intend to attend the I.T.VET Program.

Carlos Perdomo, Minister of National Security
“We are also deeply involved in finding ways to offer alternative lifestyles to the young people who might have dropped out of school. So this is one of our efforts to search the city for eighty students of different age groups, from very young to maybe a little bit older but nevertheless, people who are jobless. And the objective is to offer them courses at the IT VET program or at the Center for Employment Training to give them the opportunity to get a life skill, a career skill and then later helping them to find work. Presently, we are preparing them for school—the courses won’t start until January—but right now we are exposing them to certain social and life skills that will help them once they begin school, like coming on time, being prepared, having an idea of what the challenge will be and also offering them further counselling and help as they take on the challenge.”

Perdomo says that some of the courses that the youths may take at the I.T. VET program include hospitality management, plumbing, carpentry, auto mechanic and computer classes.