PHILIPSBURG, St. Maarten – The St. Maarten Lion’s Club launched their Youth Survey last week under the theme, Our Children, Our Future, which is the signature project of President Oralie Boirard.
While there will be public events focused on this theme later in the year, the club’s youth committee thought it best to let their target group decide what those should be. Therefore, they are asking young people, ages 11-18, to participate in the decision making by answering a few questions in a survey.
Through this survey, the club hopes to give young people the opportunity; to identify their priorities, gather information on the life of a young person on the island, and bring awareness to the UN Convention on the rights of the child.
“Most of the questions are centered on the rights of child,” said Iris Hakkens, who was contracted by the club to help develop the survey. Questions such as;
1. “Do young people feel safe- at home, at school?
2. Are their rights to play- be it sports,
music, etc. being respected?
3. Do they feel like their opinions matter?
I believe the results of the survey will be extremely useful not only to the Lions club, but also to get some firsthand data on youth issues on St. Maarten, said Ms. Boirard. Then we can identify as a collective body where the gaps are and what our priorities should be.”
Ms. Boirard further stated that, “the goal of the Lions’ club is to execute projects that will have a real impact on the youth. In order to do so, we need to involve and engage them in the process as much as possible.”
Therefore, we have developed the survey to gather data through the help of young people, youth groups and schools, with the assistance of their IT classes, after which the results will be published. The survey is also available on the Sint Maarten Lions Club and Teen Times Face book pages. The club urges everyone age 11-18 living on St. Maarten to complete the survey by March 8th, 2020.
