Its women’s month and today females old and young took time out to interact with each other. The generational interchange was held at Black Orchid Resort in Burrell Boom where women young and old traded stories and experiences of being a teenager and a seenager today in Belize. But while the participants were many years apart in age they each left with a better understanding of each other. One of the interesting activities included the sharing of child hood stories between both generations.
Elisa Castellanos, Job Placement Officer - Women’s Dept.
“You know how different things were and how I think now as young people, and I am including myself in it, I think that we take for granted there is, we are so complex and so complicated and I think sometimes we forget to just slow things down and have fun and relax and take time to know yourself and be content with that.”
Yanika Campbell, 16 years old
“The elderly are wonderful and they are enjoyable and you can stay with them like they are like your mothers here. These people tell you what happened in their lives.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
And obviously the challenges that confront our young women today are very different from what confronted our older folks out here. How do you see this helping in a way, addressing issues that may be threatening the lives of these young women?
Elisa Castellanos,
“I think Jackie that even though the challenges are different, I think
the qualities and the attitudes with which we confront these, especially young women nowadays, I think there is that need to have a role model, an elderly person to say there still this way to do things, there is a level of maturity that is needed. There is an attitude of it can be done that needs to be passed along to these younger women.”
Yanika Campbell,
“They tell us what happened in Belize already and they say don’t try to involve yourself, getting in problems and things.”
Norma Sutherland, 71 years old
“There will be times when boys will look at them but that doesn’t mean that any boy that comes they must you know and they must keep up themselves and demand respect from the boys and things like that and they were quite positive and so I hope that they actually do it.”
Kamasha Usher, 17 years old
“I find it very fantastic because it is some older people we have never hanged around before but here it is like family, everybody enjoyed it. They danced and I enjoyed it.”
Norma Sutherland,
“The group that I was in, there were four girls in the group that I was in and they all seemed, you can see that they have been listening to what has been told to them.”
Shanice Alvarez, 17 years old
“They really taught us different ways how to live and how to communicate with other people. They taught us that back then in their lifetime that they used to live some hard lives in the ghetto and now our generation, there are a lot of guns going on in Belize City right now and things. So they are telling us that just do the right thing and don’t let anyone peer pressure us and corrupt our mind.”
The observance of Women’s Month continues tomorrow with various workshops at the Corozal Community College, Trial Farm in Orange Walk and a jewellery making and recycling craft training at the Youth Hostel at mile twenty two on the Western Highway.
