Three members of the YMCA's 'Y-FOCUS' Youth Group will be heading north over the next week to participate in summer-long training programs on different ends of North America. On Monday the first to leave will be Jamie Eck and Ana Rivas who will participate in a three-month camp counselor and work based program in St. Louis, Missouri. Four days later 18-year-old Dylan Williams will fly out to Vancouver Canada where he will spend three months in the Youth Peace Network Program. Today the youths told us how they'll spend their 3 months up north.
Jamie Eck, Leaving for Saint Louis
"Its just an opportunity to learn. We'll be learning about children and how to deal with children and we can use what we learn in St. Louis to come back to Belize and then incorporate into our local YMCAs to better our YMCA in Belize."
Dylan Williams, Leaving for Vancouver
"Our arrival in Canada they will be having a 12 week skill building program. The areas of training will be conflict resolution, outdoor education, asset development, youth leadership, and global education on a whole. Myself going there and coming back to Belize will use those skills that I learn over there in the Y-FOCUS Youth Group and make sure that these skills and different training be implemented and integrated to help the community here in Port Loyola and as well the other communities in Belize City."
Clara Cuellar, Executive Director - YMCA
"They will grow more from this experience, they will share about Belize during this experience, and we feel that they are good ambassadors for the Y so our international partners will learn more about what we're really doing with our youths. They too will learn from the Ys there and they come back and they will share with the other youths and us what new ideas that we can be doing."
That was Clara Cuellar who is the new Executive Director of the YMCA. Cuellar was most recently the executive director of the National Sports Council. As for the youths their trips well they return in late August and early September. Their trips are after the summer.
