Youth Empowerment Project aims to resuscitate the art of writing

Today the Youth Empowerment Project for Youth and Student Writers, which is designed to empower youths to take an active stance in shaping their future by giving them an avenue to freely express their thoughts in a beneficial manner, held its first workshop for teachers and students at the National Racquet Centre in Woolford Avenue, Georgetown.

The Youth Empowerment Project for Youth and Student Writers is the brainchild of Samantha Arthur- Layne and was endorsed and is being funded by the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Youth Empowerment.

Presidential Adviser on Empowerment, Aubrey Norton during his address to the students and teachers present at the event said his office is pleased to be associated with the project since he believes that students should be taught how to develop their writing skills at an early stage.

He noted too that it is important for young people to have ideas and to be able to express them both in the written and spoken form.

Mr. Norton said the power of the pen is usually underestimated but when a person can write what he or she wants to say, they are in a position of strength.

Meantime, Project Director Samantha Arthur-Layne noted that the project also aims to raise awareness of self and potential to contribute constructively to each other’s development within the Secondary School System.

Students and teachers from several schools in Region four including Cummings Lodge Secondary, St. John’s College, Richard Ishmael Secondary, Dolphin Secondary and East and South Ruimveldt Secondary Schools, among others were in attendance.

At the end of the workshop each school represented will write an article on a topic selected by their respective teachers and would then work collaboratively in completing a teen magazine.

The role of the teachers is to guide and edit the work of the students. The workshop highlighted the essentials in writing and language.

Fourteen schools are part of the Youth Empowerment Project for Youth and Student Writers.