Bob Tremblett introduced our guest speaker Roberta Craft from the Sussex and Area Vibrant Communities on June 13, 2011. Roberta is originally from Saint John but is working in Sussex. Roberta passed around a contact list for different projects going on in the Sussex area regarding making Sussex a better community.
Roberta worked for the YMCA for seven years before being approached by the Saint John Vibrant Communities organization two years ago...
One of her favourite accomplishments with Vibrant Communities is the Hazen White in Saint John (Crescent Valley) housing project. Five hundred children have mentors thanks to the Hazen White partnership with the University of New Brunswick, Saint John.
Poverty is generational, “if you grow up on welfare then nine times out of ten, you will continue to stay on welfare.” Programs need to be developed not only to educate adults but to teach them how to be trained. Many don’t know how to learn, let alone what to learn.
Her last project in Saint John was a project partnered with Irving Oil to teach adults how to get motivated to learn and to feel proud about accomplishments and to be determined to succeed. Poverty needs to be tackled in several steps, and they need to start as smaller steps that are continuously getting bigger after every step. Forty-two out of 53 graduated from the Learn & Go program, and during that term, they completed nine different projects in the Saint John area.
University of New Brunswick students are the mentors for the children in Saint John; they are looking at having Bethany Bible College in Sussex start a similar program for the children in our area. We have to include the youth and make the area into what they would like to have, skate parks, splash pads etc. This will keep them from resorting to destructive methods of entertainment.
Bob Tremblett thanked Roberta for her speech.