Petulia Clarke, Staff ReporterIF YOU are living in the Corporate Area and is concerned about the number of teenaged windshield wipers at intersections, you are being encouraged to help legitimise their employment, by bringing shoes, handbags, belts and leather goods to be repaired or polished at the Skills Employ-ment Centre on Hope Road, St. Andrew.
The Centre, located at 4 Hope Road, is a component of the Government's Possibility Programme and provides training in leather care and craft, including shoe repair, shoe cleaning and shoemaking for boys 18 years and older. Items such as bags, coasters and other creative pieces from leather are also made and sold. Prices are cheap to competitive.
The Possibility Programme was launched by the Prime Minister in August last year in collaboration with private businesses, the police, other government agencies, the church community and non-governmental organisations. It is seeking a holistic approach to the issues affecting the lives of children and youth, particularly those who wipe windscreens at major intersections in the Corporate Area for a living.
Yesterday, chairman of the programme Dr. Jaslin Salmon said the number of boys enrolled in the programme keeps increasing, especially at the Skills Employment Centre. The centre has recorded as much as 40 persons using the facilities.
"We're getting more and more boys in," he said, "but what we're not having is a cessation of boys on the streets, because there are always new ones coming on."
He said that some of the boys go to the centres for a few hours then go back to the streets after that. The aim is to have them so occupied that they will not be bored enough to return.
Meanwhile, there have been numerous complaints from drivers, especially females, of being harassed and intimidated by these boys whenever they refuse to allow them to wipe their windshields for payment.
An officer at the Newport West Police Station who patrols in the Marcus Garvey Drive area regularly said that complaints from motorists include that the boys there throw water at persons and bang on their cars when they refuse them money.
"We're all assisting with the programme (Possibility)," he said, "we educate them about the opportunities, especially the very young ones there each time we see them."
Dr. Salmon said the long term objective is to have all the boys occupied enough to enable them to earn the same rewards that they earn on the streets.
Carmen Lazarus, co-ordinator of the programme, said the task of getting the boys to stay in the centres is daunting, considering they can make anywhere between $500 and $2,000 a day on the street.
The boys at the Skills Employment Centre currently get a stipend, and an increase will be granted as soon as business increases.
Other components of the programme include the St. Andrew Care Centre, which caters to the younger children.
It operates as an intake, assessment and referral location and serves as a focal point, linking with all agencies that deal with youths and children who are at risk. To date, 82 individuals have registered with the centre which is staffed with social workers and others trained in childcare and development.
These persons have been making home visits as part of the strategy to have the youngsters reconnected with parents and schools.
The centre also offers support services through the National Poverty Eradication Programme to parents and legal guardians whose children enlist in the programme. And for those enlisted that have discipline problems, the military programme at New Castle, a boot camp type structure provides behaviour modification techniques. The camp-like facility is operated in conjunction with the Jamaica Defence Force.
