MAGIC programme for primary school sixth graders praised
Basseterre, St. Kitts, (CUOPM) — St. Kitts and Nevis’ Prime Minister the Right Hon. Dr. Denzil L. Douglas has hailed the MAGIC programme as one than is good for the Federation’s young people that can accentuate the good in them.
He had special praise for Commissioner of Police Mr. C. G. Walwyn and Special Detective Lyndita Powell and other men and women of the St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force whose special efforts have caused the MAGIC program to be introduced in the schools in the Federation.
Borrowed from Florida, he notes that the MAGIC programme emphasizes, as the letters of the acronym suggest, Mentoring, Advising, Guiding, and Inspiring Children.
“I am certain that you will all agree that any individual or any nation that focuses on these activities, where their young people are concerned, are laying the groundwork for a strong and stable society, indeed,” said Dr. Douglas, who noted that the MAGIC course in St. Kitts and Nevis involves a 10-week course in which 6th Graders in the primary schools.
“They are given special advice and guidance as they get ready to leave the small and familiar world of primary school, to head out into the completely new, and very large world of high school – an environment in which there can be children as young as 10 or 11, and students as old as, maybe, 18. In view of the newness of it all, it is very important that children who are getting ready to make that transition be given special insights and guidance – from the home, from the Church, from caring adults anywhere, about the pressures under which they may find themselves – and these pressures exist whether young people are in St. Kitts and Nevis, or in Japan, Brazil, or Germany,” said the Prime Minister.
Topics discussed are wide ranging: Bullying. Discipline. Peer pressure. Self-restraint. Proper behaviour and staying on the right path even when others are not.
“All of this is discussed with Sixth Graders in the MAGIC programme as they head to high school, and the students who have completed this course will be graduatingtomorrow morning. I know that you would want me to congratulate them, not only on my behalf, but on yours as well. So heartiest congratulations go out to all who are involved – in any way at all – with the very constructive program we refer to as MAGIC, with special emphasis on Commissioner Walwyn and Special Detective Lyndita Powell,” said Prime Minister Douglas.