Foster committed to youthNew MYPART Asset offers safe space for expelled students

Lead Editor-Newsgathering

ryan.bachoo@cnc3.co.tt

Bright and blossoming youths of T&T are being lured into the dark underworld of crime and gang violence, many of them losing their lives or facing murder charges.

The Government is challenged daily to find ways to help save these young people—the future of our nation.

The formation of the Ministry of Youth Development and National Service (MYDNS) was almost an answer to the rise in violence and delinquency being perpetrated by mostly young men and some young women across the nation. The Sunday Guardian sat down last week with Minister Foster Cummings, who heads the Youth Development ministry—established by the Prime Minister in 2020 “with the primary focus to advance the youth development agenda and to promote national service”—to find out about the impact.

Apart from the 28 active programmes under its ambit for young people, the ministry has gone a step further to find a safe space for children being expelled from school and falling by the wayside, Cummings said.

The minister, who acknowledged that young people were at risk but denied there was a crisis among youths in the country, said they were presenting “a more disciplined environment where these children can have another opportunity towards their education and their development.”

Youth and crime: Who is responsible?

Between 2015 and 2019, of the 510 people charged with murder, 62 per cent of them were between the ages of 15 and 29, and 96 per cent of them were male. Those statistics were shared by Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly at a breakfast meeting in February.

“And if we look at 2022 more recent statistics, 54 per cent of all violent crime, including murder, is being committed by youth between the ages of 15 and 29,” she further added.

The last academic year also presented several school violence incidents, which dominated both social media and the national news cycle. Minister Cummings has served in the Youth Development Ministry for the last three years, having been previously appointed as the Minister in the Ministry of Works and Transport in 2020.

“We have several issues confronting us,” Cummings said when asked about the root problem of young people going astray. “We can start with the family. We can say, and we know for a fact, that a lot of families have issues, and those issues affect the children and how they develop.”

He went further in pointing out how communities have lesser influence in raising children. Cummings also said schools and churches need to play a greater role in the development of young people.

As the nation grapples with crime, many of which are being committed by young people, Commissioner of Police Erla Harewood-Christopher put the spotlight on parents just over a week ago. “We want to warn parents (and guardians) because we have seen children involved in criminal activities … we are going to use the existing legislation and hold parents accountable for the activities of their children.”

When asked if he supported the Police Commissioner’s stance, Cummings said, “It depends on the circumstances, and if there is neglect, the neglect has to be treated in a particular way, and that will depend on the legislation and the existing laws, and anything that is done within the existing laws, I will support.” On the topic of school violence, Cummings confirmed there has been a tripartite discussion between his ministry, the Ministry of National Security, and the Education Ministry on a programme that has been formulated and modelled along the MiLAT programme.

It will be managed by the Specialised Youth Service Programmes (SYSP) out of the reserves of the Defence Force. The programme will be called MYPART Asset. Cummings explained, “All of the students who have been expelled from secondary school for one reason or another, most of it being deviant behaviour, will come into that programme.

They will go through a period of assessment of three months, and then we direct them into either the technical-vocational aspect, which is the MYPART, or the academic stream, which is the Military-led Academic Training (MiLAT).

“What we are hoping to do instead of them just being expelled from school and falling by the wayside is that we present another opportunity in a more disciplined environment where these children can have another opportunity towards their education and their development.”

There will also be a female version of the MiLAT programme, as in its current state, it is only open to young men.

Programmes in abundance

For the last two decades, several administrations have established programmes aimed at helping vulnerable youths across the country.

MYDNS has 28 active programmes under its ambit. It includes Youth and Women in Agriculture, where over 1,000 youth farmers have been trained, the Industrial Apprenticeship Programme that trains young people in areas such as drilling rig operations, and the more common ones such as Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and MiLAT.

Over the last three years, Cummings said over 13,000 young people have gone through the programmes; 120 people have applied and received the Small and Micro Entrepreneurship grants, while 240 more will be distributed in the next month and 49 in Tobago.

In the last budget allocation, Cummings’ ministry received just over $270 million. He would like an increased budgetary allocation in the next fiscal year but said he understands the economic challenges and will make do with what he gets. Pressed on the historical abundance and reach of the youth programmes throughout the length and breadth of T&T and a crime rate that continues to rise, Cummings responded, “One of the problems we have in this country is that as administrations change, the focus changes, the investment changes, the policy changes, and it affects our development.”

He used the now-defunct youth camps as an example, which he said the Government was working to re-establish after it was stopped when the PNM lost elections 14 years ago.

Questioned about the urgent need to stem the flow of murders gripping the nation. The murder count for the year so far has gone past 430, and the MP for La Horquetta/Talparo insisted politicising the issue of crime does not help. Instead, he said the great challenge was to penetrate the minds of young people who are entering a life of crime.

“How do we get into the minds of someone who would take up a gun and pump bullets into a five-year-old child?” he asked. “How do we address the mind of that individual? Is that just a government issue?”

Cummings went further in saying there are issues in the society that “everyone has to take on onboard and account for” because if we “sensationalise it or politicise it and think it is just a government issue,” it is going down the wrong path. The minister called for a “balancing” of information that is put out in the public domain to both inform and inspire.

BOX

Countering public allegations

While Cummings remains publicly visible and committed to his role in safeguarding the future of youths through the MYDNS’s programmes, he also has to confront allegations in the public sphere within his political career. He is currently suing the State over a leaked Special Branch report that alleged criminal conduct on his part and the failure of the TTPS to withdraw it.

His lawyers, headed by Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, SC, stated he was not given an opportunity to respond to the “unfounded and baseless” allegations.

Maharaj also revealed that Cummings decided not to benefit from any compensation that he may be awarded if he is eventually successful in the case. He said Cummings made it clear “ … any damages he gets would be put in a special fund for the benefit of his constituents, especially the young people.” When asked how the allegations affected his reputation among the young people he leads, Cummings said, “I say to young people; consider your life a canvas, and you are the painter. You are the one shaping what you would like your life to be. There are going to be people who pass with their own paintbrush and try to shape the image that they would like to paint of you. I do not allow my detractors any access to my canvas. They can print whatever they want. They can make whatever allegations they want. I am confident in my ability, my character, and what I do.”

Cummings: A force for the future?

Our interview with the minister came as national attention turned towards the prime minister’s decision to appoint PNM chairman, Energy Minister, and Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister Stuart Young to act in his absence. It comes after nine years of Finance Minister Colm Imbert acting for Dr Keith Rowley. With an election year on the horizon, we asked Cummings about his own political ambitions and whether he would like to one day lead this country. He answered, “Once you enter politics, you enter to serve. I’m here to serve in any capacity that over time the people of this country will have me serve in. I did not enter politics to become a prime minister; I entered politics out of a desire to serve the people, which I enjoy doing … Wherever the journey takes me, I will follow, but that depends on the will of the people.”

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