NEGRIL, Westmoreland — HEART/NSTA Trust certification and job placement are some of the opportunities that are expected to be provided to Negril Police Youth Club members in the near future.

After being dormant for several years, the club was revived by justice of the peace Jhoenea Williams-Wilson; her husband Constable Damion Wilson who is assigned to the Savanna-la-Mar Police Station; Inspector Coya Williams, zone commander of the Negril and Little London divisions; and Sergeant Mark Brown of the Negril Police Station.

The first meeting of the revived club took place in August 2024 with only three members. Within the space of six months membership has grown to double digits, boasting 42 members.

On Sunday, January 26 commander of the Westmoreland Police, Superintendent Othneil Dobson, addressed the club and noted its importance to the community.

“It has been a feeder for the Jamaica Constabulary Force over the years…I am happy to see where we are. I see the work that is being done here and if it continues, I expect the Negril Police Youth Club to be the number one youth club [in the country], and we are going to take it there,” he said.

“Sundays like this I used to go to [police] youth club meetings. I know the importance that it played in my life from sports, networking, and understanding the basic running of meetings to eventually becoming the person running all the meetings in my division,” he added.

Dobson stressed the importance of teaching youth about technology and urged the police in charge to seek equipment that can be used to instruct club members in website development and other technology skills.

“When we look back 20 years from now we expect to see, not just police officers,” Superintendent Dobson said, “We expect to see people in all walks of life — lawyers, doctors, police officers, soldiers, engineers — who can tie their past to the police youth club. We see this as a way for us to engage the youths within our division and to try to strengthen the bond and to divert them from a life of crime.”

He said that there are four problematic schools in Westmoreland and school resource officers have been stationed at each trying to make them a safer place.

A police youth club has been formed at one of the schools and there are plans to start similar clubs at the other schools.

“I want to say thanks to the zone commander and station commander for revitalising the Negril Police Youth Club. We want to see what is being done here to be replicated right across the division. We have 10 police stations, our intention is to see similar youth clubs in all our police districts across the division,” Dobson said.

Ricardo Fairman, president of the National Police Youth Club Movement, shared some of the programmes that are implemented islandwide to assist youth in various ways.

“The police youth club transforms communities in so many ways…with our sporting activities, our various divisional activities such as our spelling competitions and quiz competitions and especially with our National Summer Camp,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

He explained that at the end of the National Summer Camp all members leave with a HEART certificate in various skills, mainly housekeeping and bartending.

Fairman said that all police youth clubs are encouraged to partner with HEART/NSTA Trust in order to have the programmes implemented at the community or parish level as well.

He also highlighted a new project that the National Police Youth Club Movement has embarked on that addresses the importance of inclusivity.

“The police youth club has partnered with the deaf community where they have identified some police stations where officers are being trained in sign language,” said Fairman stated.

“This will make it easier for members of the deaf community to make reports to various police stations across the island. Plans are in place to continue this training so that all police stations across the country will have this standard mode of operation. This programme is being done in partnership with the United Nations,” added Fairman.

There are 135 police youth clubs across the country, with at least one in each parish.