The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) launched its new $64 million Youth Empowerment Services (YES) project in Guyana on Monday, November 28, at the Arthur Chung Convention Center.

The initiative is part of the United States Government’s continuing efforts to reduce youth involvement in crime and violence in the Eastern and Southern Caribbean, while creating alternative pathways for at-risk youth and those in conflict with the law.

Today’s launch, the third and final one in a series to kick-off the regional citizen security initiative, attracted the participation of high-level dignitaries from the Government of Guyana and the U.S. Government; NGO partners and implementing partner agencies.

In addressing the launch, United States Ambassador to Guyana, Perry Holloway stressed that Guyana would be a significant beneficiary under the four-year initiative which will necessitate commitment and partnerships across various sectors. “The success of the YES project in Guyana will depend on the involvement of a wide cross-section of partners with a commitment to building a safer society, including the government, donors, the police, the justice sector, the private sector, and community members. Each group will have a significant role throughout the next four years,” he explained.

In Guyana, YES will draw on two regional activities, the US$14 million Strengthened Evidence-Based Decision-Making (CARISECURE) initiative and the US$38 million Community, Family, and Youth Resilience (CFYR) initiative. In Guyana, CARISECURE will improve youth crime and violence policy-making and programming through the use of quality, comparable, and reliable national citizen security information, while CFYR will support focused interventions in target communities to create alternative pathways away from crime for youth aged 10-29. The United National Development Program (UNDP) and Creative Associates, a US-based international development agency, will implement the work.

The YES project, which is based on a public health model for crime prevention, will identify and target risk and resilience factors facing crime affected communities, at-risk youth, and youth in the juvenile justice system. The project targets the 10 countries included in USAID’s Eastern and Southern Caribbean coverage area - Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago, with an initial focus on St. Kitts, St. Lucia, and Guyana.

As part of a larger goal to create a safer, more prosperous Caribbean Community, the YES Project will emphasize broader and deeper community engagement and positive youth development, while supporting a continuum of services to respond to a variety of social development needs to benefit communities, Caribbean countries, and the region as a whole.

The YES project was launched in St. Kitts on November 15 and in St. Lucia on November 17.