Today's press encounter with Musa happened after his meeting with representatives of the Leadership Intervention Unit. That's the latest gang mediation strategy that has been crafted and refined from lessons learned during earlier programs like the Conscious Youth Development Program, Restore Belize, and other special mediation units. Earlier in this segment you heard at least one gang affiliate railing against its false promise.
But, the Ministry of Home Affairs said the effort and the commitment is real - as once again, the state is trying to encourage and incentivize members of the Belize City gangs to give up the street life for good, in exchange for educational and employment opportunities.
The Leadership Intervention Unit is supposed to be the best iteration of gang intervention yet, and today, 3 prominent members of the unit sat down to track their progress since last November. Here's what Minister Kareem Musa had to say about this new variation of an old strategy:
Hon. Kareem Musa - Minister of Home Affairs
"We thought it very important to invite the media today. This is one of our regular meetings actually, for us to take stock, and take inventory of where we are in terms of our Road Map, our Leadership Intervention Unit initiative, which started back in November of 2021. And as you know, it's an all-encompassing program that includes education. It includes teaching our young men and women in dropping your skills, skills training, conflict management, and resolution. We had a very successful first retreat out to Mountain Pine Ridge that we took 50 guys from different neighborhoods, just so that they can get this type of counseling, this type of training in terms of conflict resolution. And, I have to say it was a great success. Of course, we had some hiccups that we are working on fixing in our next retreat, which we're planning more towards the ending of January. And then, of course, there is the work program that is going to continue, but we want to see how we can now diversify the type of work that these young men are doing, to get them more in line with what their strengths are. So, if they have a particular passion to do the construction or to do welding, to give them that type of training that they've never had, and definitely to get them on this very successful path, this positive feedback, because it has in fact been years of neglect and abandonment, no access to resources, no access to opportunities. And that is what we're trying to do with this initiative. As I said, so far, it has yielded some good dividends. We're only two months in, and I believe we've only had one shooting in Belize City, one murder, and for two months, that is a huge success. Of course, our heart goes out to the family of the young man who lost his life on New Year's Eve. But, we definitely see where this approach is actually yielding dividends. So, we want to again meet today to take stock, to see what our next steps are going to be."
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