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CCNTV6
  • 2 years ago
The Civilian Conservation Corps held their inter-region Drill Competition at the VMCOTT compound in Port of Spain, recently. Dominic Ramroop was there to find out more about the CCC programme.


Here's what he discovered.
Transcript
00:00 The Civilian Conservation Corps Program is run by the Ministry of Youth Development and National
00:05 Service and is designed to provide an intervention mechanism to assist in the empowerment of socially
00:11 marginalized young adults between the ages of 16 and 25 years who have limited or no academic
00:18 qualifications and are unemployed. TV6 spoke with Program Director Major David Benjamin,
00:25 who told us about the importance of such a program. It's critical for young people because
00:31 we call our program a second chance program so persons who may not have been fully successful
00:36 in terms of academics or may have an idea of what they want to do after they finish secondary school
00:42 they come to the Civilian Conservation Corps for that leg up, for that assistance
00:48 and the program helps them to restructure their trajectory, to realign themselves and you know
00:56 forge them with different coping skills so that they could then engage and choose the careers
01:03 that they want to engage in for the next phase of their lives. During the 10-month long program
01:09 participants can choose to learn a skill from a diverse selection in order to help prepare them
01:15 for life after they graduate. So we have approximately 25 skills but today's youth
01:23 are very diverse in what they're asking us to do. It is a skill so from graphic design to
01:32 coding for computers to cell phone repairs and then there are the traditional skills of welding,
01:39 auto mechanics. In terms of auto mechanics though we've been more we're getting more diverse so we're
01:45 going into the field of repairs of electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles so you find that
01:52 the offerings now are even more diverse. And are there any notable role models who have graduated
01:57 the program? Several of our military instructors now who are here in uniform are former members of
02:04 the of the Civilian Conservation Corps. We call them the full circle. They've started with CCC,
02:10 they've come back as military instructors now helping the program. Of course our most famous
02:14 graduate from CCC is a soca artist by the name of Ian Alvarez who's called Bungee Garlin. He's our
02:22 premier graduate from the program and the program has really affected and impacted a number of other
02:29 persons who have gone on to live productive lives and really contributed to the fabric of Trinidad
02:35 and Tobago. TV6 also spoke with a couple of current trainees in the CCC program who told us why they
02:42 joined and the impact it has had in their lives. There are new opportunities to do something for
02:49 myself. I've learned that sometimes, sometimes I just had to listen to people and what they had to
02:56 say because there was no one to keep a situation. So you just gotta judge somebody.
03:01 The program has been very good. I've had a very good experience still having it.
03:09 It has improved my behavior, my thinking, my mindset. It has made me, you know, build a
03:17 mindset to keep going, keep pushing. It has improved me entirely. Corporal Kimba Francois,
03:26 who is one of the full circle people Major Benjamin referred to earlier, also gave us
03:31 an idea about why she thinks the program is beneficial to the nation's youth. I think the
03:37 program is beneficial to youth in the country because number one, it helps get youth ready
03:43 for life, get them off the street because the majority of youths set at home, have nothing to do
03:50 and some of them join gangs. You understand? And CCC is a very good program to help them along
03:58 that too. It is helping in, well, with sports. It's very fun. You know, you get the best of both ways.
04:08 In its 22-year history, the program has seen over 30,000 graduates, mainly through government
04:14 funding. But Major Benjamin is hoping that corporate Trinidad and Tobago can jump on board
04:20 more in the future. It's 99.9% government funding. We do engage corporate Trinidad and Tobago to
04:28 come on board for some of the events. Would you like to see more sponsorship from corporate Trinidad and Tobago?
04:32 Most definitely. I think that an investment in our young people is a real worthwhile investment
04:38 and it's an investment into the future of our country and investing in our young people is
04:43 certainly a way to go because the young people are the future.
04:46 Dominic Ramroop, TV6 News.
04:55 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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