For hundreds of young men on the fringe of society, the Youth Cadet Service Corps has become the second chance most of them thought they would never get. 200 students have passed through the doors of the Corps since it opened in 1999. The Corps is more than just a school because recruits receive crash courses in academics, farming, and discipline. This is their seventh anniversary and the celebrations start with a motorcade through the streets of Belize City tomorrow. Today they put on a military style drill for the media and they told us why and how the Service Corps is making a difference.
Sandra McClaren, Youth Coordinator
"They are young men who decided to make a change in their lives and so they have enrolled into Youth for the Future, the National Youth Cadet Service Corps Program. We're going to be having the first NYCSC festival. Its going to begin with a road march through the principal streets, we're going to have the Fire Department involved, the Police Cadet, cheerleaders from our major schools, such as SCA and Palotti High Schools.
Discipline is the first major goal that occurs in making any change in anyone's life and so this is what is done at the Cadet Corps through the drill that you saw being done there, we have academic studies as well as vocational studies."
Sgt. M. Anderson, BDF Drill Sergeant
"What you see happened a while ago is a part of discipline within the band display. Drills go along with discipline so the Cadet Corps started off just about two weeks when we didn't have a nice Corps, a nice marching group of people, and within those two weeks you can see the knowledge of marching they have gotten."
The first annual festival will be held this Saturday at Roger's Stadium.
