The Tribune

By DONITRA DAVIS

THE STRAW Market Authority has established a summer programme for vendors’ children to provide wholesome and productive activities on site while their parents are at work.

The programme caters for children aged from five to 12 at the market during the business hours of 9am to 8pm and opened as soon as schools finished for the summer.

Chairman of the Straw Market Authority, Kevin Simmons, said the initiative is designed to recognise that some of the children needed to be in a controlled environment and that some left at home “idle time, idle hands, could get into mischief”.

“As you will notice that there is no television and no one is on a computer,” he said.

“Everybody is doing the basic things that we all did as children - the colouring, the reading, the writing - and you are away from the computer.

“We are hoping that we impacted the lives of the children.

“Thus far we understand that it has yielded positive results.

“Some of the children are eager to come out; its like going to school and having something to do.”

The children recveived a visit from the Deputy Prime Minister, Philip ‘Brave’ Davis yesterday afternoon, who said that he endorsed the programme, which ensure that the children “are exposed to positive things and to keep them thinking positively” and praised Mr Simmons for his foresight.

“Part of the problem with our youth today is having positive things to belong to,” Mr Davis

said.

“The sense of loss because there is nothing for them to be doing. This gives them something to belong to, something to be a part of and they are doing it in an atmosphere where their parents are not that far away and that the parent can come up and lend their assistance.

“It is really a self-help programme where parents can come up at times and they do their part.”

Mr Davis said it was a pilot jopint venture between the authority and vendors at the Straw Market and Pastor Sam Boodle and the congregation of The Lutheran Church of Nassau.