Y.F.F pushes self help, not handouts
Activities for Youth Week continued this morning, but contrary to what you usually hear from a government initiative during election season, News Five’s Marion Ali found that the message today was less about handouts and more about self help.
Linsford Castillo, Director, Youth for the Future
“You hear about youth crime and violence, you hear youth doing this and youth doing that, you hear about youth negativity that makes the headlines. Whenever you talk youth it is always with a negative connotation. But this week we di celebrate the good things about young people.”
Marion Ali, Reporting
And with those words, the Youth for the Future handed out certificates and cash prizes to three young people for having placed among the top finishers in a business plan competition it conducted. Of the twenty-five entries submitted, Olivia Leon, of Cayo, took home a thousand dollars for her winning submission she called “Oli’s Unique Art Flow”. Kemesha Itza of Belize City placed second and collected seven hundred dollars for her idea titled “Caelyn’s Snack Shop” while Ansel Diego of Dangriga received five hundred dollars for his third place entry dubbed “Moily’s Ice Cream”.
The competition was part of Youth Week activities and the cash prizes served to encourage the turning of vague dreams into workable reality.
But while the focus of the ceremony was business, the highlight was the presentation of twelve year old Tarun Butcher, a standard five student of Santa Elena, Cayo. Though very young, she plays an integral role in the running of her family’s Aguada Hotel. Her moving words this morning were nothing short of inspirational.
Tarun Butcher, Motivational Speaker
“I know that if we need anything or want anything we have to work for it. And it bothers me when a see a kid on the street begging for a shilling because they want a piece of sweet. They ask my mom “Miss, Miss please fi wah shilling. I so hungry, I so thirsty.” Then I see them run to the store and buy a chips or an ideal. What do we learn from begging like that? We learn to grow up as adults and be beggars, always wanting an easy hand-out.”
Youth for the Future Director, Linsford Castillo, also had some sobering advice.
Linsford Castillo
“You need to have discipline. Doing good is hard and doing bad is easy. Easy to do bad, easiest thing da fi do something wrong. But it’s hard to do the right thing and to do it all the time.”
“There are a lot of ideas out there and what is happening, foreigners are coming in, seeing the opportunities, seeing the ideas and stealing it away, and sometimes noh even steal, deh just tek it cause we noh want it. And we find ourselves in a corner complaining and blaming when we ourselves could be our own deliverers, unnu hear me. So, young people, ah wah encourage unnu fi start to think and be creative inna every which way.”
Reporting for News Five I am Marion Ali.
Youth Week is being observed under the theme “Advocates for Change, One Youth at a Time.”
