Profile: High-flying Tobago councillor lauds youth development diploma

Just four years since Huey Cadette completed his Diploma in Youth Development Work, the 38-year-old is today a high-flying councillor in Tobago’s House of Assembly.

Charged with overseeing social services in Tobago’s Division of Health and Social Services, Mr Cadette addressed hundreds of delegates as part of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in his native Tobago last November. He has made it his personal mission to ensure that young people are taken more seriously in government.

Yet he is certain that he wouldn’t be where he is now without the skills he gained on the diploma. “It helped me to be much more professional in my approach,” Mr Cadette says. “The training helped to focus my passion – I have a lot of energy and ideas, but the diploma allowed me to be more strategic in my outlook.”

Enrolling on the course at the University of the West Indies in Tobago in 2004, over two years Mr Cadette and fellow students from Trinidad and Tobago and other Caribbean countries learned about the principles involved in working in youth development. During the 13-module course the students covered topics such as enterprise and economic development, youth policy, gender, health, project management, the environment and sustainable development.

“There were so many skills that I wanted to enhance and sharpen to make sure my strategy for working with young people is informed by sound principles,” he says, explaining his rationale for choosing the diploma. “The course was very comprehensive. It really gave me insights into what you should be focused on and the kinds of skills and strategies you should adopt.”

Mr Cadette, who held down a full-time job at Trinidad and Tobago’s National Training Agency while he was studying, says he had to dedicate about 10 hours’ work per module, involving assignments, online lectures and tutorials.

Yet the structured modules were not the only positive thing about the diploma, he adds. As well as improving his professional skills, the councillor built a thriving network of contacts among the other international students on the course. Mr Cadette now has a number of contacts also engaged in youth work to bounce ideas off, and friends to hang out with, or even stay with, when he visits other destinations in the Caribbean.

“When you go to a country you find you have a contact there and someone to stay with,” he says. “You might have an idea for a project, so you send it around [to your contacts] and learn of the experiences of others.”

After being spotted as a rising star by one of the assembly’s main political parties, Mr Cadette was appointed a councillor in January 2009. He is unequivocal in his advice to other people contemplating enrolling on the diploma course who would like to work with young people.

“My advice would be to go for it! If you want to be involved in youth at some level – whether through sport, community, church or what have you – the diploma gives you that foundation, that ability to operate more professionally. It focuses your passion and energy and hones your skills.

“Whether you become a doctor or a rocket scientist, minister of religion or police officer, it will contribute to your career in a significant way.”

Secretariat Links:

• Country Profile: Trinidad & Tobago
• Youth
• What is the Commonwealth Youth Diploma?