Rose Hall, St James – For years Orlando Cooper felt lost, adrift with no one to teach him how to be a man. Today he has a job at a hotel, a spot he earned after showing his mettle during work experience. Cooper credits a USAID-funded Local Partner Development (LPD) youth crime and violence prevention programme with his transformation.

“It really changed my life. It has taught me how to manage my anger, have respect for others, know how to talk to people, know how to approach a person… It changed me into a man because I was a boy before. Only a man shows respect to an elderly person,” he said to loud applause.

He was speaking, Monday, during an award ceremony at the Jewel Grande Montego Bay for 90 youngsters who completed the programme.

“It has made a big impact in my life because I couldn’t really find myself nowhere at all… I have the thought but never have anyone to guide me along the road,” Cooper said of the initiative implemented by FHI 360, a non-profit human development organisation based in North Carolina.

Along with its partners, LPD has coordinated interventions for more than 650 endangered youngsters in 30 communities in Kingston and St Andrew, St Catherine, Clarendon, St James, and Westmoreland.

Participants benefited from vocational training, job opportunities and psychosocial support. In total, 681 of them were trained in life skills, 289 in vocational skills, 109 placed in jobs that were facilitated by 25 private sector partners. In addition, 143 youth micro-enterprises were also supported.

Another 386 youths also received psychological therapy, 67 benefitted from counselling on substance misuse and 128 received direct mentorship through the programme.

Javoy Weir, who operates a car wash in his community of Hendon, Norwood, in St James and a surveillance company in nearby Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland, received financing for both ventures through the LPD. Not surprisingly, he was among those who had rave reviews for the programme.

“It helped me out financially in a lot of ways. I was not working and it has elevated [me] and now I have opened my own little company; I am self-employed,” a proud Weir told the Jamaica Observer.

“I would encourage youths to join up. I still go out there and encourage them. And I still employ who I can employ in my age group,” he added.

Another Hendon resident, Malick McKenzie, said his window making shop has benefitted from the youth micro-enterprises segment of the programme. He said he has been spreading the word and many have shown an interest in participating.

“They realise that they will get their certificate. I get my business licence sort out, so a whole heap of changes,” McKenzie said, adding that through the programme he was able to acquire a tent under which he operates and tools for his trade.

Ricardo Reid, who runs a green grocery shop out of his community in Hollywood, Norwood, was equally enthusiastic and grateful.

“I feel that this programme should go in every crevice and corner in Jamaica right now. Big up! They built the board shop and gave me all the supplies. What I am going to do now is add on a restaurant beside it. But the restaurant now going be like a wall structure. So right now me just thank FHI 360 for starting that business,” he told Observer West.

There have been many other success stories from the programme. According to chief of party, USAID Local Partner Development, Morana Smodlaka Krajnovic, at the end of the programme almost 60 per cent of participants were “showing less antisocial tendencies, less aggression and anger, better impulse control, better anger management and they are more likely to stay in school or legally employed”.

The programme, she explained, was tailor-made for the realities of Jamaican life and tweaked as needed based on participants’ response.

“We love to say that our programme is youth-led and youth-designed. This is a programme for youth that is done with youths. We check what works and what doesn’t work. Youths are open and totally honest with us. If they don’t like something and if they did not think that this was something useful for them, they will tell us and we will adjust the programme. That’s the only way for the programme to work, you have to be open to learn, you have to be open to adjustments,” Smodlaka Krajnovic stated.