By Sadef Ali Kully
The YMCA of Greater New York launched a youth workforce development program Monday at the Y Roads Center in downtown Jamaica.
YouthBuild, the youth workforce development program, provides at-risk youth between the ages of 17–24 with the opportunity to earn their high school equivalency diploma while learning valuable vocational skills.
According to the YMCA, the program gives youth who are neither in school nor employed the chance to choose from four vocational training tracks: construction; building and facilities management; early childhood education; and sports and fitness.
“We are helping youth succeed who have not been able to succeed in the traditional sense. The program hits so many skils at once, building confidence to actually earning degrees and certification such as OCHA,” Nicole Kourbage, director of YouthBuild at the Y Roads Center in Jamaica, said.
Program participants will complete their high school equivalency coursework and vocational training by March 2016. Throughout the program, participants receive a stipend, learn how to be effective and ethical community leaders and receive counseling to assist them with personal issues such as childcare, transportation, substance abuse and homelessness.
The Y Roads Center in Jamaica is a way to offer services from job training to counseling to empower disconnected youth and help them to take control of their lives.
“The Y Roads Center prepares the youth of Jamaica to go out and begin the next stage in their life,” Councilman I. Daneek Miller (D-St. Albans) said. “Each time I visit I am welcomed with positive energy and an impressive group of young people who are taking the right steps to make a change in their lives.”
YouthBuild has a partnership with the U.S. Department of Education and is funded by the Department of Labor, according to a YMCA spokeswoman.
“I wasn’t motivated and felt depressed. And I was too scared to go back to class when I was in high school,” Brian Sampson, 20, who is born and raised in South Jamaica, started the program recently said. “I referred here. I never thought it was going this much fun. This is my fresh start.”
For other particpants, it is a way off the streets and away from a life of crime.
“I saw this place coming back from the parole office and wondered what it was,” Marcus Rivera, 23, from Brooklyn, said. Rivera was recently released from prison and joined a rehab to clean up his life. “I was stealing to put food in my stomach and clothes on my back. Now everything is going well – coming here is a part of that.”
Reach Reporter Sadef Ali Kully by e-mail at skull
