'Save our young people'
Published:Tuesday | August 14, 2012 | 12:00 AM
Anastasia Cunningham, News Coordinator
Society has failed our youth - Matalon
For Joseph M. Matalon, there is no price that can be placed on the feeling he gets from the heartwarming gratitude expressed by a youth once considered 'at risk', but rescued from the brink of damnation.
"It is a warm, gratifying feeling to know the difference you made in the life of an unattached youth. It is reward in the truest sense," declared outgoing president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ).
"Seeing the glisten in their eyes or the overwhelming gratitude on their face or reading the note they wrote to express their heartfelt gratitude, words just cannot describe how that makes you feel and assures you that you're doing something right."
Demitting office after three "challenging" years at the helm of the private-sector group, Matalon intends to continue making a difference in the life of at-risk youth through the Youth Upliftment Through Employment (YUTE) project that was established during his tenure. The aim of the programme is to facilitate economic empowerment of the hundreds of unattached youth in vulnerable communities across Jamaica.
Matalon explained that following the infamous Christopher 'Dudus' Coke episode that rocked the nation in 2010, the stark realisation came to fore that there was an alarming number of at-risk, unattached youth in need of help.
"Studies indicated that there were as many as 150,000 unattached youth, and the biggest concern was that up to 70 per cent were deemed to be unemployable because they lacked academic and vocational qualification, as well as the social skills that they needed to function in the job market," he noted.
"Following the Tivoli incursion, a number of the members of the organisation felt that arising out of what had transpired, the private sector ought to respond in some way that demonstrated our own concern for all our citizens."
He continued, "So we decided that we had to do something, something that was a game changer, which played to the strengths of the private sector while making a meaningful impact in terms of addressing the pressing needs of that segment of our society. That was how YUTE came about."
Impactful facets
Focusing on at-risk youth age 16 to 29, a multifaceted programme was developed with the objective to provide remedial, vocational, life skills and training opportunities. Added to that was the work experience, apprenticeship, internship and full-time employment aspect. Then there was the mentorship programme, which Matalon considered one of the more impactful facets. The U-Turn intervention feature targeting those considered most at risk, such as gang members or those involved in criminal activities, was another significant component.
A number of partners were engaged to bring YUTE to life, the first phase of which was launched in the latter part of 2010. Now nearing the end of its first two-and-a-half-year phase, more than 1,000 youth have benefited from the programme.
As they move forward to the next phase, the group is now conducting a review and looking at the sustainable areas, those that were more impactful and what more needs to be done.
"There is no doubt that the journey to facilitate the economic empowerment of the hundreds of unattached youth in vulnerable communities will neither be smooth nor easy. We discovered that during our efforts and the challenges we faced. But we are very happy with the impact that we were able to make. We had a fantastic team and everyone worked really hard," he stated.
Matalon, who is also the chairman of the ICD Group, declared that it was absolutely critical for society as a whole to play an active role in steering at-risk youth in a positive direction. Going forward, he said, there needs to be a more coordinated effort of all youth initiatives, which would allow for a more effective approach, maximised impact and a better use of resources, while achieving the same objective.
"Society also needs to develop a more active sense of voluntarism," he added.
"One individual making a difference in another individual's life, multiply that enough times and we really can make a difference and I hope that in the future that can gather momentum," he stated.
Get to the youth earlier
Matalon pointed out that it was society's failure when young people were allowed to reach the stage of at-risk and this needs to be seriously addressed.
"What was striking to us at the beginning of the YUTE programme was more than 60 per cent of the youth enrolled required some sort of remediation, as they had very limited numeracy and literacy skills at that age," he said.
"And these are not individuals who did not got to school. These are individuals who spent years in the school system and yet emerged without the basic tools of numeracy and literacy."
He emphasised, "Unless we want to continue to remediate for the next 50 years, we need to get to the youth earlier. We need to make greater and more intelligent investments to get to these young people at the early-childhood phase and to ensure that they have the tools when they come out of our education system to be productive citizens, which is a solid foundation and a valuable education. Otherwise, we are going to be continuously caught in a circle of very, very costly remediation.
"It will also have economic implications because these individuals are essentially unemployable and they are, therefore, easy prey for those that would encourage them to get involved with activities that we would rather they not.'
He continued, "If we do that at the early childhood level, then it makes our job much easier going forward and eliminates the significant cost of remediation that we have to undertake years later.
"Therefore, the main focus of our education policy for the next few years ought to be on making those game-changing adjustments and investments in proper early-childhood development, which will not allow for the disservice that we have done to those young people who have spent years in school but still can't read and write."