It’s a Police initiative called a Drop In Center – a place
where kids from a given neighborhood can “drop in” and do their
homework, surf the web, even get a meal. The Police Department has had success
with the Drop-in Center in the Yabra area and now they’ve extended that
idea to Hattieville. With assistance from the United Nations Population Fund
the Hattieville Community and Youth friendly enter was opened today. The modest
space is above the village police station and Douglas Hyde who spearheaded the
effort in Yabra says from this small space will come big changes.
Douglas Hyde, Youth Coordinator
“It is that one stop place where a young person comes for information
and also in terms of opportunity. So maybe it is that place where a young person
says I just want to find a job, I just want to find out where I can get some
information or where can I go to get certain information or services. So the
drop in center is that place where a person from the community or a young person
can go and get that information, or receive that service, or do research or
find out the information that he or she needs.
When you create the drop-in center with activities and programs that focus
on young people and having young people themselves running these things, you
have more young people accessing the information and also accessing the program.
So we’ve seen where that success has been very important, we’ve
seen where it has literally showed where young people want to be a part of the
programs and activities that are offered through it.”
Allen Whylie, CEO – Ministry of National Security
“Whilst the center will be opened from 10 in the morning to 8 pm Mondays
to Saturdays, there will be two police officers assigned along with two civilian
volunteers. So throughout the day and the evening there should be one police
and one civilian who will be working. We having had time to analyze the drop-in
center in Yabra, we know some of the difficulties we had faced and we also know
the success and benefits of that program. We are interested to moving that area
into further areas of Belize City, especially in the Mahogany Street area and
so on.”
The police are looking for a suitable piece of land in the Mahogany
Street Area.
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