Mentors for at-risk girls

In an effort improve the social development of the girls at the Granville Child Care Facility in Trelawny the National Centre for Youth Development launched a Big Sisters Mentorship Programme.

According to the youth empowerment officer for Trelawny, Rhonda Walker “there are a lot of things the facility needs help with in terms of mentoring and I think that a mentorship programme could assist the administrative staff in giving the girls something that they need such as a hug, a listening hear of someone to show some interest in them”.

The Big Sister Mentorship Programme will see mentors giving empowerment session and activities to the 17 girls participating in the project and will include visits to the facility and the use of the arts to help the institutionalized girls become productive individual in the society.

When asked about the goal of this mentorship programme the youth empowerment officer noted that “this is a pilot project that will run for a year and we are hoping to see marked improvement in the behaviour of some of these girls”.

Currently, there are 19 mentors who are involved in this programme Walker explained but Half Moon has expressed willingness to partner with the National Centre for Youth Development, which will increase the amount of mentors available to the rest of the girls at the Granville Child Care Facility.

It was through a visit at the girls’ facility on Christmas, where Half Moon noticed a need to offer something more than a once a year treat or visit according to Half Moon’s leisure sales manager Linda Lawrence.

“On our visit we could see that there was a need for some sort of mentorship and thus we contacted Rhonda about becoming involved in this programme. So our role now is to get more mentors from the Half Moon family to be apart of this effort” Lawrence noted.

The Granville Child Care Facility has the capacity to house 60 girls and creates a family atmosphere where girls who are in need of care and protection can be nurtured physically and emotionally while learning general life skills.