Youth Enhancement Services gets huge check from CARSI

Youth Enhancement Services received a cheque of one hundred and eighty-seven thousand one hundred U.S. dollars courtesy of the Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI). The monies will fund a three year project that is being undertaken in collaboration with Community Policing Unit of the Police Department to fulfill three goals including: the renovation of a pool at the Raccoon Police Station in south side Belize City, a camp for police cadets and a parenting workshop. Today, at the Y.E.S. Headquarters in Lord’s Bank Village, U.S. Ambassador to Belize, Vinai Thummalapally, handed over the funds to the organization

Karen Cain

Karen Cain, Director, Youth Enhancement Services

“The project has three main goals. One is to basically refurbish the pool on the south side of Belize City right in the same compound with the Raccoon Street Police Station. And hopefully that pool then will engage south side children in fun activities, learning how to swim, learning personal development and in trying to reduce criminal activity. And then the second objective was to facilitate camps for the police cadets, the young cadets. And these camps will be held in the three zone areas; essential zone, the northern zone and the southern zone and hopefully rotate the camp in other districts so the kids get to know their country as well. The third objective is the parenting workshop which we hope to engage over three hundred and sixty persons. parents of the cadets, of YES, parents all over—everyone is welcome to attend—and hopefully to gain skills on how to deal with trouble youth.”

Elodio Aragon Jr.

Elodio Aragon Jr., Deputy Commissioner

“This project, the restoration of the pool, is only one part of the entire project as you all have heard this morning. But that project will allow us to be able to reach out to the kids; especially during the summer times and likewise by reaching out to the kids, we will be able to reach out to the parents. We are hoping that the location where the pool is will give an advantage to us for us to be able to give life skills training and other training that the youths today could use as well as the parents.”

H.E. Vinai Thummalapally, U.S. Ambassador

Vinai Thummalapally

“We had something like thirty-two or thirty-three proposals and this particular proposal put forth by Youth Enhancement Services and the Community Policing of the Police Department, seemed the most well thought of, the most well-put together proposal; rock solid proposal. Our interest is to help the youth in Belize City and all of Belize and this particular program had so many good components—trying to help youth with developing life skills some vocational skills; teaching young parents, parenting skills; how to resolve conflict, how to deal with difficult situations.”

Karen Cain

“We definitely have to look at sustainability and one of the ways for the pool is to charge a very small fee cause you know we have to put in chemicals, maintain the pool and so forth. So a minimal, minimum fee will be charged to the clientele. The one that we might need some help with is the camp for the cadets because that is very costly for seven hundred kids to be at one vicinity at any one time.”

The project will also provide scholarships for one hundred students.