Northern Caribbean University (NCU) president, Dr Lincoln Edwards, has called for increased investment in youth development, including the greater use of church facilities to implement training and empowerment programmes, as a crime-prevention strategy.
“Private educational institutions must be empowered with additional resources to capture these youths and bring them into the mainstream. This is a matter of national security,” Dr Edwards stated, highlighting the RESCUE (Restoring Every Student’s Confidence Using Education) initiative being implemented by NCU to steer at-risk youths away from a life of crime.
He was delivering the keynote address at the launch of the Inter-Agency Network Youth Programme of Kingston and St. Andrew at the Knutsford Court Hotel in Kingston.
At the event, Dr Edwards signed a memorandum of understanding which formalised the university’s outreach arm, the Morris Entrepreneurial Centre (MEC), as a member of the project steering committee of the Inter-Agency Network.
