Twenty-four year old Ezerica Fowler was forced to drop out of high
school in the ninth grade when she became pregnant, but thanks to the
introduction of an Out of School Youths (OSY) programme in her Majesty
Gardens community two months ago, she now feels empowered to go after
her dreams of becoming a make-up artist.
The mother of three is but one of 30 youths in the area who have been
given a chance to upgrade their skills through the initiative, which is
co-ordinated by the HIV/STI prevention arm of the South East Regional
Health Authority (SERHA).
For the past two months, these school dropouts have been meeting at the
Majesty Gardens Covenant Community Church in the area to receive basic
training in barbering, cosmetology, electrical work, music, numeracy,
and literacy.
"We have been finding it very interesting, because a lot of young girls
down here who didn't get to finish school can continue to do so," said
Fowler.
"Most of the young boys who normally like smoking during the day -- you
know those that smoke hard -- this programme here keeps them from 10:00
in the morning to 4:00 in the evening. This kind of life makes them take
time out for themselves and learn something, because most of the young
boys down here, they just don't go to school. But this programme here in
the community makes them come here and end up learning things," she
said.
Twenty-three-year-old Ralston Smith, who also benefits from the
programme, agrees that it helps to keep young men, like himself,
occupied daily. The Haile Selassie High past student wants to be a
musical engineer, although he has a HEART/Trust NTA level one
certificate in cabinet making.
"It's interesting, because it taught me a lot of things that I didn't
know and refreshed my brain about a lot of things like the maths,
English, music, electrical work, and barbering," he said.
"The programme has a nice impact on the community because it brings
forth a lot of things that certain youths do not know and upgrades your
knowledge so that you can go to HEART/Trust NTA and better yourself," he
added.
Regional Behaviour Change Co-ordinator at SERHA Andrea Campbell
explained that out-of-school youths were targeted for this initiative
because these individuals are often unemployed and unattached, and are
therefore most likely to engage in risky sexual behaviours. As such, a
life skills component is also added to the curriculum, which is aimed at
empowering these individuals to develop new attitudes, behaviours and
choices. Students are taught about structuring resumes and how to do job
interviews, among other things, during this session.
"This is one of the strategies that we utilise in our targeted community
intervention. So the strategy is to particularly target out-of-school
youths in offering them skills building as a part of empowering them,
and thereby reducing their risk of becoming infected with HIV. So
through the empowerment, persons would now have a skill, so their
earning power goes up. With the increase of the earning power, there is
hope that they would be better able to negotiate condom use if and when
in a relationship," she explained.
The OSY programme has been replicated in several communities. Three of
these communities are in Kingston, another three in St Catherine, and
three in St Thomas. Although the programme generally lasts for three
months, financial constraints resulted in the organisers having to carry
it out in Majesty Gardens for just two months. The last class was held
for the batch of students in this community last month and ended with an
evaluation session.
"A component of this programme is that, at the end, HEART Trust would
come in and do an assessment and they would certify them to whatever
level they are," Campbell said.