Making history as the first youth organization in The Bahamas to launch its very own mobile app, the  Youth Empowerment Program (YEP) will now make communicating with the public more accessible.

The announcement was made yesterday during a press conference YEP held at the British Colonial Hilton Hotel.

YEP’s Director Mark Palmer said,  “we  are excited about this new App because it has a lot of things on one application.  You can put this on your mobile devices as well as your laptops.

“It allows us to share our (YEP’s) curriculum, our news and our events with our community.  Now, we have quite a diverse community; it’s not just students.  We also have volunteer teams, the directors, school counselors, alumni and parents,” Mr. Palmer informed the Bahama Journal.

“The students can RSVP to events and also the management team can take attendance, which is very useful.

“It also has a chat module where you can set up a chat room either individually with someone or you can specifically communicate with a group; counselors, etc.

“We also have sign-up sheets, codes for practice and all our Social Media. So you are immediately connected with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and our website.  We’re really excited because it brings our community, which is quite diverse, together and it will make us much more effective in the years to come,” the Director added.

YEP organization only has a few private sponsors, as their main source of funding primarily comes from the Ministry of Education, JS Johnson and Ministry of Social Services.

After extensive research to find an App that bear no financial burden on the youth organization, YEP found Australian-based App Company called ‘Team App’ which they have partnered with to create YEP’s App.

In addition to having up to 1200 high school students from private and public schools working with YEP over the last six years, YEP is now branching into the primary school level.

Board of Director Member, Dr. Novia Carter says “the Youth Empowerment Program is extremely excited to launch   for students who are enrolled in the grade five and six program.

“This program seeks to create youth villages.  We are extremely excited now that we are moving from the high school population; we’re now in the primary schools.  What we intend to develop is a 12 week program for fifth and sixth graders that seeks to do just that, ‘empower younger children’,” Dr. Carter emphasized.

YEP’s intention to streamline this new partnership between high schoolers and primary school students by using the older students to ‘buddy’ up with the students from primary school when practicing different activities.

Having involvement with YEP before  becoming a Senator,  Jamal Moss  said, “My role inside this program is really to assist with the young people who are unattached and have a hard beginning in life.

“I look at my personal background and how I grew up. I made a promise to myself.

“I said if I was to achieve my goal in getting involved in the high level of politics, which I am now, I would do more that I can to assist those young people to know that there is no dead end to where you are at.  There is always an avenue to get out.  So, I use my time and position to guide young people and give hope to those young people,” said Senator Moss.

Celebrating its sixth year, YEP plans a host of activities beginning next month.

YEP also organizes fund raising events to help finance their community initiatives  and college trips. They will  travel to Canada at the end of March.