~ 18 brigadiers promoted ~
PHILIPSBURG--“Never give up.” This was one of the strong messages Education Minister Silveria Jacobs had for the 18 members of the St. Maarten Youth Brigade, who graduated on Saturday as part of their promotion package for the youth organisation.
Of the 18 brigades, ten were promoted to brigadiers and eight moved up to cadets.
Jacobs said that the brigadiers are the future law enforcement officers for St. Maarten. She said amongst the group are youngsters who can be further groomed to take up positions in the various arms of law enforcement. She said the youngsters displayed discipline, bravery and other core values.
She urged them to continue their hard work as they were “a great example,” for their fellow youth. She recollected when local founder of the group Zulayka Peterson approached her when she had been in office two-and-a-half years ago about the formation of the group and was happy to see it come to fruition.
She said too that the Voice of The Youth St. Maarten, under which the St. Maarten Youth Brigade falls, is doing “a great service” for the community.
Acting Governor Reynold Groeneveldt congratulated the graduates. He said the Youth Brigade is a “great initiative,” to bring young people together in a positive environment to learn good values that they can take with them for the rest of their lives.
He told those who were promoted that the things that they have learnt in the programme can be applied in their work environments in the future as values such as discipline will be an asset. “Make good use of the opportunity granted to you,” he said.
Peterson said a group from the Brigade had an opportunity to visit Colombia for an extreme training camp in July of this year. The group was also invited to participate in the Brigade activities in Curaçao for July 2016, which they will be attending.
Amongst the 18 honourees, were Stephenson Constant, who was named Most Cooperative Brigadier and Raekwon Jeffers, who was named Most Improved and was also honoured for Best Attendance. The brigadiers, who were promoted, were presented with certificates. The mentors and coaches of the programme were also honoured.
The ceremony featured a demonstration by the graduating youths. Towards the end of the event a video was shown depicting the experiences of the youths during the two-year programme. The video was compiled by 22-year-old Junior Mills, who was sent to Curaçao for three months to learn underwater and above ground video-graphy. He now uses his skills to document the activities of the Youth Brigade. The event ended with graduates and their families being treated to a sit down buffet dinner.
The objectives of St. Maarten Youth Brigade is to present physical, mental, cognitive and social education for all members in order to promote self-confidence, self-esteem and higher level thinking skills. The group also seeks to eradicate the phenomena of negative behaviour amongst the youth country-wide.
The complete programme runs for three years. Youths start off as Aspirant Cadets and after three months are promoted to Cadets after completion of an assessment camp. Eight months after, they can proceed to Brigadier followed a year later to Brigadier first class.
The brigade emphasises on the leadership skills of the candidates, general condition, perseverance, basic military skills, group formation, survival skills and dynamics. Preparation and execution of the bivouac (training camp, which took place last June) was to complete the Cadet and Aspirant Cadet training.
The intention is to put into practice and review the theoretical lessons given by instructors during the bivouac. Each candidate Cadet with 80 per cent or minimal 50 per cent attendance will act as instructor and will be in charge of a group during the bivouac for one of the courses chosen. Those that have shown potential in leadership skills, during their three months training, were allowed to pass the Brigadier exams.
The Youth Brigade is for young people between the ages of 12 and 21; both male and female. The process of recruiting members consists of two phases, the publicity phase which consists of making use of advertisement spots on the radio, TV, social media, television programmes, notices and more. During this phase the organization will call on the young people to register in order to become a member of the Brigade.
The second phase includes presentations that are given at several schools to inform the young people of the project. Registration is now open until the end of January next year. The graduation took place at the Clem Labega Square starting at 4:00pm.
On December 18, the St. Maarten Youth Brigade will be hosting another bivouac training camp to give the students who did not make the rank of Cadet or Brigadier another opportunity to do so.
