THE MINISTRY of Youth, Sports and Culture recognised the hard work and commitment of children in the Indaba Project during a National Youth Recognition Ceremony.
The community-based organisation received the most outstanding youth organisation of the year award.
Robin Pierre, Claudesha Gray and Fred Jean, three teenage participants in the Indaba Project after-school programme and the annual Island Stewards Camp, received youth awards for excellence, while programme volunteer Ean Maura was awarded the most outstanding youth leader award.
“I feel very happy to know that they are being recognised for who they are. These are all young people who are responsibly contributing towards society, responsibly contributing towards the community.
“They are demonstrating positive traits, such as initiative, leadership, participation, the willingness to learn, the willingness to try, not having to be told what to do. These are all positive signs we see in them,” said Ean.
Robin and Claudesha have been with the Indaba Project for more than 10 years. They started attending the after-school programme in primary school and are now young adults. Robin recently graduated from C R Walker High School and Claudesha is a senior at the Government High School.
As seniors in the programme, they take on leadership roles and help to guide the younger participants.
More than 40 children from the Grants Town community regularly show up for the Indaba Project’s after-school programme, which has been running consistently for the past 15 years. The programme is currently based on Fowler Street, under a large tent where all of the activity takes place: homework, class projects, reading and research, community service, arts and craft, performing arts, field trips and recycling.
“Across the street is a park where they can play. Some of them leave school at 3 o’clock, go to the park and at 4 o’clock, leave the park and come over to the tent. Some of these are boys – 10, 11, 12 year old boys – and they are leaving the park and coming over here to sit down and do work, and no one calls them. That is pretty amazing in my book. That says a lot about them,” said Ean.
Indaba is a South African concept that means calling or bringing the community together to deal with matters of the community.
The children of the Indaba Project continuously answer the community call. The primary school students eagerly await their coming of age (graduation into grade seven), when they become eligible to participate in the Indaba Project’s flagship Island Stewards Camp (ISC), a two week summer leadership camp in the Family Islands.
During the ISC, stewards are immersed in the cultural traditions of the Bahamas, reconnected to the wholeness of the natural environment and engaged in work and entrepreneurial activity. Active participation in the after-school programme is a requirement.
“Sometimes they beat us here. It is not just that they show up, they show up and are ready to go. Once the trailer (where the equipment is stored) is open, they know to take out the chairs and set up, you don’t have to tell them.
“Generally there is a culture that is associated with the Indaba Project and the culture to some extent is maintained by the young people. The older children are seeing themselves as the guardians of something and the guides for the younger ones,” he said.
Last year, the children took the initiative to introduce spontaneous skits into the after-school programme. Now, performing arts is a core activity. The after-school programme is free to the community. Sessions run three days a week.
The Indaba Project also hosts a community lecture series with local and international scholars and a Black Empowerment Film Festival.
Recently the organisation collaborated with Spelman College, an historically black college in Atlanta, Georgia, to host an international exchange programme. The oral history project brought together Spelman professors, independent student scholars, volunteers and students of the Indaba Project to collect the stories of Bahamian elders.
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