The Tribune

DURING the period of governance under Sir Lynden Pindling there was considerable discussion of introducing a national youth service. The idea of a service was influenced by such services in Guyana and Africa.

A number of newly independent developing countries considered national youth service as a critical component of national and youth development.

In Guyana, socialist Prime Minister Forbes Burnham introduced the Guyana National Service in 1973. It was disbanded in 2000. The service, modeled on the National Service of Tanzania, was introduced for a number of reasons, including as a means of addressing youth unemployment.

The Guyana Service included a paramilitary component. The Guyanese participants were mostly aged 15 to 20. They received both military and agricultural training.

The service proved highly controversial under the autocratic cult of personality and dysfunctional tenure of Burnham’s misrule during which Guyana spiraled into economic and political collapse. Some thought the service was used as an instrument of control by Burnham.

In Africa, a number of countries instituted mandatory national service for young people. In Tanzania, the late Julius Nyerere introduced a compulsory programme in 1963, which was suspended in 1994. The government has attempted to reintroduce a service, with mixed success and widespread controversy.

The purpose of the service was listed as: “to overcome the colonial legacy; to overcome ethnic and social cleavage; to imbue youth with patriotism; [and] to impart skills.”

Its primary role was defined as: “Nurturing Tanzania youth to become responsible and patriotic citizens [and] to engage in productive and economic activities.”

After he demitted office, Sir Lynden expressed regret that he did not introduce some form of service. Successive Pindling governments were hobbled by a lack of clarity on the purpose of a service and whether it would be mandatory or voluntary.

National youth service took on a particular identification and definition in the mindset of many Bahamians. Some viewed the idea in pejorative terms.

Sir Lynden realised that it was highly unlikely that a compulsory service would have been accepted by most Bahamians. Still, had he introduced a smaller-scaled voluntary service programme with clear goals and greater clarity might it have had some success in encouraging volunteerism?

A lack of clarity on national youth service, including its definition, continues today. It is important to get the language, models and concepts correct. National service has a specific connotation.

It often pertains to the types of mandatory programmes instituted in Tanzania and Guyana. It may also pertain to voluntary programmes which invite individuals of various ages to engage in community service.

In the United States, such national service is seen in a variety of national volunteer programmes, some publicly - and privately-run.

The best known domestic service programme in the US is “AmeriCorps; officially the Corporation for National and Community Service, or CNCS, is an independent agency of the United States government that engages more than five million Americans in service through a variety of stipended volunteer work programmes in many sectors.”

Minister of National Security Wayne Munroe recently opined on ways of addressing at-risk youth. While the minister clearly wants to address criminal behaviour by young people, his intervention betrayed some confusion in the government on the difference between volunteerism and at-risk programmes for youth.

Programmes to instill a spirit of service in young people should not be confused with behavioural and developmental programmes, especially for youth potentially predisposed to or involved in criminal conduct.

By example, government-operated and many private high schools have mandatory community service programmes in which students provide a number of services such as volunteering for clean-up initiatives, tutoring children or providing meals for the hungry.

These community service programmes are not the same as behaviour modification or intervention programmes that may be required by the courts or are a part of the work of institutions such as Simpson Penn and Willimae Pratt.

The Nassau Guardian of December 18 reported: “Minister of National Security Wayne Munroe said yesterday the government is making plans for a national youth service to target young people who are not in school and not working, all in an effort to reduce the level of violent crime in the country.”

He is reported as saying: “We are also going to be looking to model, not exactly on the youth guard, but a national youth service for young people who are, for want of a better word, as the English would say, at a loose end – not in school, not working.

“This has to do with how people are raised. It’s kind of difficult to change it once it’s set in. You have to bend the tree when it’s young.

“Our National Youth Development Office of the defense force has been asked to come up with a concept proposal for us as to how it would work, what agencies will be involved, then, of course, you need budgetary modeling as to how you are going to fund it.

“For instance, let’s say you are going to engage with 20,000 young, unemployed people, you will unlikely be able to do that all at once. In the first instance, how you will stage it is the proposal they will come up with.

“Something like this you have to discuss first because that is quite an imposition that you would want to have community and country buy-in … We have to start taking responsibility for our children.”

The Guardian noted: “Munroe said with so many young people falling into trouble, it is up to the community to intervene.”

While well-meaning, the minister’s comments are quite jumbled and not well-thought out. We must distinguish between varieties of programmes with different, though sometimes overlapping aims.

For example, the Defence Force Rangers and the Governor General’s Youth Award are both geared toward young people but they have different missions and programme elements.

The government needs to be clear about exactly what it has in mind. The talk of a voluntary national service that might eventually involve up to 20,000 young people in the same breath as talk of programmes for at-risk youth can be confusing.

What is most urgent now is that the government use its available resources to address the pressing need for interventions with our at-risk young people. They are the ones who are dropping out of school, being recruited by gangs and becoming involved in lives of crime including murderous gang warfare.

That is where we need to concentrate financial and other resources at this time. In these situations, interventions are needed much earlier than the age of majority as is the case with most national service models.

There is a sociological maxim: “When it gets in early, it gets in deep.” This applies to both positive and negative values and behaviour. This is why early intervention is critical. This may be child development programmes which include interventions to correspondingly improve parenting.

Moreover, to replace or remediate certain entrenched attitudes and behaviour requires specially designed programmes that are highly experiential and not just talk therapy or shouting at young people like drill sergeants.

There are several international models of programmes designed specifically to respond at-risk young people, mostly male, from lives of crime. That is where the Government needs urgently to concentrate its efforts.

One measure that could have a profound affect on a number of our young people is Outward Bound, an “experiential learning, expedition school and outdoor learning programme ... that serves people of all ages and backgrounds through challenging learning expeditions that inspire self-discovery, both in and out of the classroom”.

The highly successful global initiative also offers a programme known as the Intercept Programme for At-Risk Youth and Troubled Teens. It is designed for young people from ages 12 to 22 and addresses “the needs of struggling teens and at-risk youth beginning to demonstrate destructive behaviours, as well as the needs of their families”.

The Intercept Programme serves “youth, young adults, families, schools and communities ... at risk of academic failure, dropping out of school, delinquency or becoming chronic offenders”.

Another measure is AMIkids, the brainchild of a judge who got tired of seeing the same juvenile offenders returning to his court over and over. Today, AMIkids is thought to operate “some of the most effective juvenile justice and alternative education programmes across” the United States.

We need to be careful in designing programmes for at-risk youth. A retributive and militaristic mindset pervades the thinking of many Bahamians. Such outdated mindsets should not be the basis for such programmes.

Our programmes should be based on a sound understanding of child, adolescent and youth psychology, not fundamentalist tropes and clichés.

Further, when a national youth service programme is viewed primarily as a way of addressing crime and youth violence it gives a negative connotation to the concept of volunteerism and community service.

We should promote a positive vision of community service and not service as a source of punishment or correcting behaviour.

The agencies responsible for various programmes will influence and colour the nature of these programmes. It is likely best that various at-risk programmes should be run by other entities, including perhaps a government authority, rather than the Ministry of National Security.

We need greater clarity on the programmes we design and implement to address youth development in general and at-risk behaviour specifically.

It would be good if the government and the minister engaged experts in various fields to help them understand the issues at hand and the best ways to address the social dysfunction leading to the loss of many of our children and youth.