D.Y.S. Gets 4 New Pickups
Today at the Department of Youth Services in Belize City, a handing over ceremony was held for four 2022 Great Wall Wingle pickups for the department. Each vehicle is valued at around forty-eight thousand dollars – tax exempted – licensed and insured and ready to be deployed. It was a historic moment for the department as they are expanding their services across the length and breadth of the country. Duane Moody reports.
Duane Moody, Reporting
Four new pickup trucks were handed over to the Department of Youth Services to carry out its mandate across the country. Director Kevin Cadle says that the historic donation to the department provides its officers with the resources it needs to reach the youth in urban and rural areas of the country.
Kevin Cadle
Kevin Cadle, Director, Department of Youth Services
“It is our mandate to be able to provide the kind of necessary services for over a hundred and seventy thousand young persons or approximately seventy percent of this population made up of young persons under the age of forty and a little over almost fifty percent who make up under the age of twenty-nine years old. So this is significant. Everything was saturated in Belize City. We recognise that young people live all the way in Crique Sarco, all the way in Jalacte and different parts of the country down south. And therefore we need to provide the type of resources for our officers to get out there and pull those young persons and be able to provide any type of assistance that they need. The other vehicle is going to be utilised in Dangriga to be able to provide for a large population – not just urban, but rural young people. First time in the history of this country this is actually taking place. Never have our people seen this magnitude of youth work that is taking place. Again in the west, we have never had a vehicle given to the youth officer in the west, especially brand new vehicles for the department on a whole.”
The recently installed Minister of Youth and Sports Rodwell Ferguson says this handing over concludes vehicle donations to the National Sports Council and the Department of Youth Services. The process started under Minister Kevin Bernard who once held the portfolio.
Rodwell Ferguson
Rodwell Ferguson, Minister of Youth & Sports
“I had a meeting with the minister of state and the financial secretary about a month ago and I told them the importance of these vehicles because if you are going to combat crime in this country, it cannot be only the effort of the Ministry of Home Affairs. While the Ministry of Home Affairs does enforcement, there has to be some other soft entity to be able to get to the youths across this country. That’s the purpose of these vehicles.”
This is the first of a string of activities coming on stream for the Department of Youth Services.
Kevin Cadle
“One of the big things we are doing this year is to revise and revisit and restructure the national youth councils. Young people need to speak for themselves and by themselves to be able to provide meaningful trajectory for their way forward in our society. And as a result of that, we are actually going to formulate hopefully by the end of this year, a national youth council and then the formulation of the national youth parliament for this country – something that is significant and big. Friday coming, Thursday and Friday, we are doing an orientation for the first time with gang members who are literally going to start going back to school doing Math, English and financial literacy starting in the next two weeks. So that’s something huge for the country as well and those same gang members will also in Belize City be doing the apprenticeship training for the first time. They will literally start doing skills development and harnessing on their particular area that we believe they could be skilled in and be able to provide for themselves and their families.”
The Department of Youth Services, along with Humana, will be opening a new office in the villages of Big Falls and Independence. Duane Moody for News Five.
