JEAVON Charles, a young man in his late 20s, considers himself a youth leader in his country, but specifically within the Victoria Village community where he belongs. He says that he believes that conducting one’s self in a responsible manner, while making positive contributions towards the development of other young people within his community, are very essential roles that he must be engaged in.

“We are the leaders of tomorrow. In fact, right at this moment, we can be considered real leaders and so we have to try hard to behave well at times; we must have integrity – people must be able to trust what we say and what we do. At the same time, as young people, we have to be willing to work hard to develop ourselves, as well as our community. I believe that the community depends on each and every one of us to succeed,” Charles stated.

BUSINESS-ORIENTED

Charles has come from a family where all his siblings are boys, and where he has seen his mother and father working hard and achieving much in the area of business. In fact, he is also a manager of his own Internet Café, and is also one of the assistant managers of a relatively large variety shop that is run by his mother.

“At the Café, I try to set a programme that can work towards helping young people, especially those who are studying to make the best of whatever they are endeavouring to achieve,” he said. “I think of what their needs are and make the effort to set things in place, so that my staff and I can assist in the best possible manner, and every day I try to improve on what I am trying to do; we do not just provide facilities to surf the Internet, but we strive to do every other thing so as to make life easier for the students and others who may need our help.”

According to Charles, having successfully completed secondary school he has become much more involved in business, as well as social activities within Victoria. He stated that the contribution of the youth is an essential aspect to the development of the village; that young people are essential human beings in the development of any village or town and can be seen as the pillar of economic and social upliftment of the country as a whole.

Social and physical activities
“Because the year has just started we have not gone out as yet, but usually I get the young men to come out, especially on days like Fridays and Sundays – getting involved in sports and related activities,” Charles explained. “Sports helps you a lot, it builds bonds mentally, physically, socially, health-wise and so forth. Due to such activities, we are able to reach out to each other and create good friendships, as well as learning to respect each other.” He added that he is also very much involved in sports, especially cricket and would be happy to have a cricketing pitch set up within the village as early as possible.

He said that as a group of young people they had started to make efforts towards acquiring such a pitch, but the resources to get the work done had become a problem. However, he says that he is still hopeful that a cricket pitch will materialise in the not-so-distant future. “I am hopeful,” he said.

Charles said that he feels that other than the youth being successfully involved in academic work and skills training; the next great step for them is to become involved in sporting activities.

“I believe, for example, that if we get a pitch we will be able to get more youths out and ensure that their time is more gainfully occupied, so that there is less idle time; less time to think about certain unhealthy and destructive things such as smoking, stealing and such like…sports can create better individuals and that is what people, like me, are striving for in this village. Football is going fairly good and I like that,” he stated.

ECONOMIC VENTURES

When quizzed on ways in which the youth could become more economically viable within the village, Charles responded that there is no one particular way. However, he said that he believes that if the youth are encouraged to stay and complete school, or acquire a life-skill, which can prepare them for the life of work, it will be a solution for at least some of the social and other problems within the village and the society at large.

He said that he believes that the youth, once attaining the age to work, should become employed – either in the form of self-employment or by way of working with someone or even the government. However, many times the adults can be blamed for not taking their responsibility more seriously with children, while they are in school, he posited.

Charles advanced the view that the community, the village and the country should all take responsibility, to ensure that all the youth get a fair chance to acquire both the educational training and also some form of skills-training so that they can become productive citizens of this nation.
He noted that while he believes that the government is doing a whole lot to help young people, they also need to help them to become much more aware of some of the programmes and how they may benefit from them.