4-H Centre opens school year

It’s one of these old fashioned institutions that doesn’t make a lot of noise; it just gets the job done. Today the National 4-H Centre in Belmopan held ceremonies marking the opening of its school year. Thirty-five young men and fifteen young women are enrolled in the ten-month programme that combines traditional academics with career training. According to National 4-H Supervisor Luke Ramos, their post graduation placement rate has been running at an impressive eighty-five percent, but this is not a time to rest on any laurels.

Luke Ramos, Supervisor, National 4-H and Youth Dev. Centre

“We are a long way from where we want to go, but every journey begins with the first step. We have made that first step and will continue until we reach the end of the journey. In our opinion, it is the least we can do for the benefit of the greatest resources in our country, our youth, that are indeed our future.”

Nuri Muhammad, Director, Youth for the Youth

“Our success is not only in the numbers of you who graduate. We certainly love the ceremony of celebration, but our greatest love and our greatest appreciation for what we do is when we look at the broad population of our young people and see them dealing with the circumstances which they are faced with and making good, strong choices to move forward, to play roles of not just consumers, but playing roles of productive, active citizens within our project called Belizean development.”

Marion McNab, C.E.O., Ministry of Education

“I encourage you to develop a skill that would enable you to become entrepreneurs, to pursue higher training in your area of interest. You are young and smart and full of potential, the sky is your limit. You can make of yourself anything you want and learning a skill is a very important step on your way to being self dependent and realising your dreams.”