Savanna-La-Mar, Westmoreland – The first 60 participants in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)/Microsoft Information and Communication Technology (ICT) programme in Westmoreland will be presented with certificates and prizes on October 7.

They are to be awarded at a graduation ceremony hosted by the Bluefields People’s Community Association (BPCA) in the parish.

Funded mainly by the UNDP and Microsoft at a cost of $1.4 million, the programme was introduced primarily to provide IT training for 240 “at risk” young people across Westmoreland, to enable them to improve their education, increase their income-generating capacity and enhance their ability to contribute meaningfully to the development of their communities.

The training course lasted for approximately six weeks and the participants were taught basic computer skills, website designing and other skills.

Project coordinator Keith Wedderburn said the young people, who were between 17 and 25 years old, were trained free of cost and are required to give back to the association or their community by volunteering in selected projects.

“These students are not required to pay for their training. What we have done instead is to encourage them to get involved in volunteer work. We have sold the idea of volunteerism to them and they have welcomed this, and so they were active participants in the recent International Beach Clean-up Day in Bluefields,” Wedderburn said. “In another few days another beach clean-up is expected to be carried out in another section of the parish and these students will form the greater percentage of the workforce.”

He added that the programme is to end in 2006 but said that if organisations and businesses from the areas provided funding, the programme could be extended.

“There is currently a high demand for people who are computer literate to go into the workplace and so these young people would naturally have a head start in terms of other young people their age. We are anticipating that many will be assisted through the project to play their part in the building of their communities and their country,” he said.