Duke of Edinburgh International Award |21 November 2019

Participants and guests in a souvenir photograph after the launch of the training session on Monday (Photo: Anel Robert)

30 young Seychellois receive training to become mentors

Some thirty young Seychellois are currently attending a week’s training in line with the Duke of Edinburgh International Award to become mentors.

Joanne Waweru, regional business support manager-Africa from the Duke of Edinburgh International Award Foundation and Wangari Kaburi, programme manager of the President’s Award Kenya, are facilitating the training.

In the last 10 years the Duke of Edinburgh International Award has helped mould a total of 6177 young people of whom 894 attained the bronze level, 454 the silver and 217 the gold standard.

The chairman of the National Awards Authority and principal secretary for youth and sports, Fabian Palmyre, eagerly welcomed all the participants and noted that the Duke of Edinburgh International Award is among the world’s leading achievement awards and it operates in 130 countries.

“The programme changes the lives of people in a positive way and research has shown that it has an impact not only on the lives of the participants but also on the community. The programme also engages young people in worthwhile leisure activities and voluntary service and also allows young people to discover satisfaction from achieving and contributing to the community. This award is well suited to address the challenges faced by youths given that its primary objective is focused on creating the environment and opportunity for youths to develop healthy lifestyles and good values,” noted Mr Palmyre.

Mr Palmyre also stressed on the role of the mentor. “The role of mentors is crucial in facilitating and empowering people in shaping their own journey through the programme as well as through their personal lives. I am sure after this training, this will raise the quality of our programme. In the next seven days the youth will be trained in the leaders training, adventurous journey training, supervisor assistant training and training of trainers.”

He urged the participants to learn the maximum from the facilitators and to share with the community so that the youth become ‘World Ready’.

Gerard Pierre, the national director of the Duke of Edinburgh International Award Seychelles, noted that this training is mainly to build capacity of the youth already in the Duke of Edinburgh International Award programme.

He explained that the programme is open to all youths aged from 14 to 24.

The participants have to follow 6 months training/activities to get a bronze medal, 12 months of training/activities to get the silver medal and 18 months of training/activities for a gold medal.

Vidya Gappy