BY KIMONE THOMPSON Associate Editor -- Features thompsonk@jamaicaobserver.com
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
TWO hundred and seventy six million dollars may sound like a lot of money to some, but for the National Youth Service (NYS) it is barely a drop in the bucket to reach the 14,000 young people it targets through about a dozen programmes each year.
 |
| Maureen Webber (second right) along with her team (from left) Acting Programmes Director Naketa West; Deputy Director Community Services Nickesha Lindsay; and director community services, Omar Newell, at yesterday’s Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange held at the newspaper’s Beechwood Avenue headquarters in Kingston. (PHOTO:ANTONIO GRAHAM) |
The figure is 68 per cent of the NYS's budgetary allocation froam Government, the remainder of which covers salaries and administrative costs.
"It is more than we got last time around... but it is not enough," chairman of the NYS board Maureen Webber told reporters and editors at the Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange yesterday.
"That's why we are leveraging support from the private sector and other donors."
Included in leveraging support, as Webber puts it, is making "polite requests" of public or private sector companies to put up some of the funds to compensate NYS participants engaged particularly through the service's summer programme.
The stipend paid by NYS now ranges from $6,000 to $8,000 per week.
"All we're asking entities to do, in terms of our summer employment programme, is to pay a third of the cost, that's one week, while we pay for two weeks. What that does is provide the opportunity for us to take on another participant," Community Services Director Omar Newell explained.
Webber and Newell were guests at the Observer newspaper's Beechwood Avenue headquarters. They were accompanied by Nickeshia Lindsay, deputy director, community services; Naketa West, acting programmes director, and communications consultant Patrique Goodall. more
No comments:
Post a Comment