Sport to be used as tool for teaching life skills to J'can 'youngsters'

Concerned about the high risks that Jamaican youths face of not achieving their full potential and a likelihood of turning to illegal activities, USAID/Jamaica will be launching an intervention programme through sports this year to help combat the problem.

That's the word from Dr Karen Hillard, mission director of USAID/Jamaica.

"There is a regional programme financed out of Washington called 'A-Ganar', which means 'let's do more' and 'let's win'," Dr Hillard said during the Observer's Monday Exchange.

The project uses football and other team sports to prepare youth for employment.

"We volunteered to be a pilot country for this programme (in the Caribbean) and it's a programme that's implemented by non-governmental organisations who are partners of the America's. It's been proven successful in other countries like Brazil, Uruguay and other places around the region," she explained, noting her organisation plans to launch the programme within months.

"What they do is take kids who are in school or out of school and they form sports clubs and use sports as a way to reach life skills that are important in the world of work such as punctuality, responsibility, mutual respect and things like that," Dr Hillard said.

"Then once they've got the team spirit going and the youth engaged, they actually start teaching job skills," the USAID official explained.

The 'A-Ganar' project engages youth ages 17 to 24 from marginalised communities and has the participation of community organisations, local business leaders and national football personalities.

According to Dr Hillard, who has been based in Jamaica since October 2007, "a very high proportion of the kids who participate in that programme, go on to find gainful employment".

"If we get Caribbean Basin Security Initiative funding, one of the major thrust that we're going to have is working with youths and helping them engage meaningfully in society, whether it be through education, through sports, through job skills training, and so we are going to be taking kind of a multi-faceted approach and sports is going to be part of that," Dr Hillard added.

"We have gotten US$50,000 to start this programme, but president (Barack) Obama, I believe, announced approximately US$37 million for the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative for this year. That's region-wide and I'm going to advocate to get as much of that for Jamaica as I possibly can," she said.

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