The article below was published in the local newspaper.
Youth Opportunities Unlimited proves that “Impossible is Nothing!”
While watching a surf competition at the beach one afternoon, Coreena Rorke, a Canadian volunteer with Youth Opportunities Unlimited (YOU), and her friend Steph Lindgard, a Canadian volunteer at the Caribbean Maritime Institute (CMI) wondered what else was going on down the beach from the competition. It appeared to be a beach clean-up…and in fact it was! As part of the surf competition, the Jamaican Surf Association encourages the participants to help clean the beach of garbage while they were waiting their turn in the water. Coreena and Steph didn’t hesitate to help out, and wondered why they didn’t do a similar event with their respective organizations? With that simple question, plans for a joint project began to take shape.
The girls then took the appropriate steps to ensure that the directors of their organizations gave their endorsement, and began the hunt for sponsors. Mrs. Georgia W. Lewis-Scott, Executive Director of ‘YOU’ was ecstatic about the idea and offered her full support! Soon after, Lasco Foods was on board, and the timing perfectly coincided with their Annual LASCO/JCF Police Officer of the Year Competition, as the officers would be spending a week in Kingston to get involved in social project within the communities.
On the morning of Monday, February 7th 2011, close to 20 youth from the Mountain View community, who are taking part in the YOU/CSJP (Citizens Security and Justice Program) gathered at the office of ‘YOU’. Roselyn Stewart of St. John’s Ambulance volunteered her time to ensure everyone’s safety, and Mr. Makfarley from C.M.I. volunteered his services to transport the group to Lighthouse Beach on the Palisadoes. Upon arrival, a youth proclaimed, “Wow, it looks like all of the garbage of Kingston was dumped on this beach in anticipation of our event today, this is going to be impossible!” Steph from C.M.I. explained that this wasn’t far from the truth and that in actual fact, if we all made an effort to properly dispose of our garbage, it would not end up on our streets; wash into our gullies, and then down to the ocean before washing back up on our beaches and damaging our fragile eco-system.
It was amazing to see the amount of garbage that was collected over the next couple hours. Numerous bags of plastic drinking bottles were gathered to be returned to CMI as part of their newly launched recycling program and countless bags of waste was placed into a dumpster to be taken away.
The Youth of Mountain View were energetic and took a sense of pride in their work as they quickly saw the transformation on the beach. The police interacted smoothly with the youth, and smiles were endless!
After a delicious lunch provided by Lasco, the Officer of the Year nominees each gave a motivational talk to the youth. The message was clear that with hard work, integrity and dedication ‘anything is possible!’ With the work completed, a beach football match broke out between the youth and police officers – the score remains unknown, but after what they accomplished together, and the level of joy in the atmosphere, they were all winners!
At the end of the day a strong bond had been forged between the youth and the police officers and as the buses pulled away not only was there a clean beach left behind but another reason to be proud Jamaicans and to have pride in Jamaica!
