00:00Four primary schools in Tunapuna took part in the Tunapuna Police Station Community Council's first transition symposium aimed at preparing
00:09Standard 5 students for the move from primary to secondary school.
00:13The symposium held at Eldorado West Secondary School focused on helping students navigate the challenges that often come with the
00:21transition while encouraging positive decision making from an early age.
00:25President of the Tunapuna Police Station Community Council Neil Burusing says the initiative is about preventing problems before they begin
00:34by reaching students early.
00:36Community police is a part or branch of the TTPS and we come into students' areas and we come into
00:48schools that have issues with gangs, drugs, all these sorts of things.
00:55So we are fully aware and we are looking at it as going to prevent it, not just after the
01:03fact and trying to solve the problem after it happens.
01:07We want to prevent things, we want to stop things and we know that it's starting from the primary school
01:14going up into secondary school.
01:16Burusing says he hopes to extend the program next year to include more primary schools across the Tunapuna district.
01:23He is also encouraging other police station community councils to introduce similar initiatives in their communities.
01:31Acting Senior Superintendent Wernley Gift of the North Central Division says the program comes at a critical time as police
01:40continue to deal with incidents involving primary school students.
01:43We have had incidents of bullying in some of the primary schools.
01:48We have seen where after school and most of the incidents, I must admit, takes place after school hours when
01:55the students are on the streets.
01:56We have seen where they have engaged in fights and we also have instances where community of a community oriented
02:04police officers.
02:05We are called to schools to do counseling and to more or less invite the students of the schools to
02:12be part of our youth clubs.
02:14And the reason for that is that we have seen in some instances where some students are influenced to engage
02:22in vaping and those kind of things.
02:24So this symposium is more or less to, you know, sensitize them and to be aware of these negative influence
02:33that may come their way.
02:34Shala Kisto, TV6 News.
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