By Marissa V. Foster

THE eldest of six siblings, born on January 10, 1996, Collin Moore is the son of a cleaner and labourer. He attended the Nurney Nursery School, Kildonan Primary and later on the Central Corentyne Secondary School. His father died when he was just seven years old and in many ways, that made his upbringing quite difficult. Collin realised education was the only way out of his situation at home. “It was an absolute struggle but I did it anyway. I did it because I knew that education was the only way to help me out of my unfortunate situation. I could not have done that without the help of my mother and grandmother who have helped and encouraged me in whatever way they could have,” said Collin. “ I would walk to school daily without any money and this was the case for my entire high school experience. I was desperate to learn and build my capacity. I had a strong desire to become a better man.” The efforts of his determination truly paid off as he graduated high school with eight (8) CXC subjects. He benefitted from numerous training programmes from various fields and he is currently a second-year social work student at the University of Guyana.

Collin was always taught by his mother to try his best in life to not only make himself better as an individual but to also uplift others at the same time. His journey to help other youth started when he was chosen to attend a Youth Leadership Training with the Ministry of Presidency Empowerment Unit. He admitted that he was quite skeptical about the training because he thought one cannot be trained to lead. As it turns out, he was wrong. He acquired a vast array of knowledge from the then advisor to the President on Youth Empowerment Mr. Aubrey Norton and his team. After graduating from the impactful training, he returned home to Berbice with his developed leadership skills and collaborated with other young leaders (Krystal Thomas, Jelissa Ward).

Together, they formed the Youth organisation, Youth Champions Network (YCN). The aim of this organisation is to empower young people through education, training and networking. They have worked on several projects and programmes over the years, such as their youth drive programmes called “Youths on the move” which was created to reach out to young people across the East Berbice region, to listen to their problems and work to find possible solutions for those issues.

Through their efforts and the vision of the then advisor to the President on Youth Empowerment, YCN was able to establish the Kildonan Night School programme, which aims to give school drop-outs a second chance to earn an education. Presently the programme has over 30 young people who will be sitting the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) Examinations in May and a new batch which will be sitting next year. The Youth Champions Network has also worked with the Ministry of Communities to see the realisation of the new Kildonan block-making facility which will soon see the employment of young people within the Kildonan community.

Apart from being the president of YCN, Collin also serves in several organisations and boards. He is the coordinator of the New Leaders for Social Betterment; the Chairman of the Community Action Council Ministry of Public Security from 2018/2019; serves in the capacity of Chairman of the management committee of the Kildonan ICT Hub and Chairman of the Kildonan Community Development Council. He was elected to the office of Councillor at age 19 and then ascended to the Chairmanship at age 21 and today he still serves as the Chairman of the Adventure/ Bush Lot Neighbourhood Democratic Council. Moore is a recipient of a National Youth Award from the Ministry of the Presidency’s Department of Youth. He intends to continue to make his service available to the youth population of our county and all Guyanese at large. He has intentions of working for the people at the highest office of the land. While his work and its origins are from Kildonan, it spreads to all parts of Berbice and it is his hope that one day it expands to the rest of the country.

The aspiring politician’s advice to young people is, “Who told you that you can’t? Who said that you can’t follow and achieve your dreams? Well, believe me when I say that you can achieve your goals and be anything that you set your mind to, once you are willing to work honestly and hard towards it. You must have a love for what you are doing, so if you must get into youth work then do it for the love of it. In Chronixx’s own words, ‘D’weet fi di love, we nuh d’weet fi di likes’. So at no point should your self-interest be the motivation behind your work unless that interest is to see others develop and become better human beings. Remember not to lose hope and track of your goals because surely you would not see the fruit of your labour overnight. Just like alkaline said, ‘Everything in life just takes time. Gwaan build, but you got to wait on it. Wul out youth, so you got to wait on it.’ Overall I say to you, nothing comes easy and don’t allow your today to determine your tomorrow, so all now the grind continues.”