Youths build carpark for school

By JERRY TSINABI
Thanks to the hard work of youths in the nation’s capital, Jubilee Catholic Secondary School in Port Moresbynow has a new carpark. The parking area is a great facelift to the school front.
The carpark was built by youths under the NCDC’s Urban Youth Employment Project (UYEP), Extended Skills Works (ESW) part of their 35 day Youth Job Corps (YJC) training, where the youths undergo a 10 day training.
The new development is a 50x5m reinforced concrete parking bay with a single carpark length of 3×5. This car park can cater for 16 to17 vehicles at one time.
The private contractor’s site supervisor Terence John was pleased with the effort the youths had put into completing the project.
“There are about 70 youths in total here, with more than 20 being girls,” John said.
“The youths have worked very well and have learnt many Civil works skills.”
The project started on Jan 21. From Jan 22-26 was a week for excavations and calculating of the fill needed to get the correctly balanced result.
However, when the youths were all set to commence on the next phase rain disrupted plans and work was cancelled.
Work then resumed on Feb 5 and was to be completed last Monday, however, once again nature was not kind. Work had to be canceled for a few more days.
“It only takes about two weeks for a job of this scale, but the weather really let us down.
“This caused the project to take much longer to complete,” he said.
“Most of the youths are dropouts from the formal education system so we teach them how to manage time.
“We have taught them to the best of our abilities with what we have in the time that was allocated.
“They have learnt how to mix cement well and also manage their time,” he said.
“Our aim is to teach and train them to become better people in the future.
So we advise them and show them the right path to take.”
The youths’ group two leader is a young lass from Enga by the name of Carol Kepo.
Kepo said she was very privileged to be a part of the group and was proud as most times this job was done by men.
“I am very happy. I am learning many new things. Skills such as measurement of heights and mixing cement to make concrete,” Kepo said.
Kepo said she had also learnt how to interact in a work environment from talking to the youths and back up to the supervisor.
“I have also learnt the correct name of the different tools and equipment used in such civil works,” she said.
“I never knew what they were called before. Every day is interesting.
“As a leader, I talk to and pray with the youths every morning and every afternoon.
“Many of the youths have changed and I encourage them to be different when they return to their communities,” she said.
Jubilee Catholic Secondary School Principal Bernadette Ove said the school was very grateful to NCDC and the youths for constructing the carpark.
“The addition of the carpark is a great facelift to the school front and what is even better is that it is free,” she said.
“It benefits the parents in the sense that they can now park properly instead of blocking off the streets.”
Ove said another advantage to the school was that it also provided additional parking space.
She urged parents not to spit betel nut on the carpark when waiting for their children.
“It is our responsibility to be maintaining and looking after the carpark.
In that way we show our appreciation.”