Government will create a Bermuda Technical Institute for the 21st Century through its Jobs Corps programme, Community Development Minister Michael Weeks said yesterday.And Mr Weeks revealed a series of adverts promoting the value of ‘working with your hands’ will be launched as he tries to turn around the alarming plight of many young black males in Bermuda.He said Jobs Corps will include input from businesses and professions where blacks are under-represented to try to address some of the imbalances outlined in race studies in recent years.Kicking off a lengthy motion on Government’s efforts implementing recommendations of the Mincy Report yesterday, Mr Weeks gave further details on Jobs Corps, a training and vocational programme for young people in the United States which is currently being Bermudianised.Yesterday, Mr Weeks told the House of Assembly the scheme would help plug the much-maligned gap left by the closure of Bermuda Technical Institute and address concerns at Ronald Mincy’s finding that more than half of black males drop out of school early.“We have not done as good a job as we could have, to ensure that our young men have the best technical and vocational training possible,” Mr Weeks told the House.“And we also failed to ensure that growing numbers of our young men have the post secondary educational and professional training to move into the more professionally lucrative sectors of our economy.“These have been our failures and in some respects we as a society are paying for that now.“I am sure that many of my honourable colleagues here have for years listened to individuals lament the closing of the Bermuda Technical Institute.“The Tech, as it was called then and still is today, was a major component of the Bermudian workforce development system of that era.“We cannot go back in time, and I am not indulging in nostalgia for an era that will never return.“But allow me to say that I and this Government are of the view that these programmes, particularly Job Corps, can help us achieve the goal of creating a Bermuda Technical Institute for the 21st Century.”The Mincy Report found young black men veer more towards getting jobs working with their hands than young white men.Mr Weeks said public service adverts would be set up to “highlight and challenge what professor Mincy characterised as a cultural of lowered expectations that many of our young men have of themselves”.The Minister said the adverts will revolve around the theme that ‘even surgeons work with their hands’.He explained: “This theme is important to get these young men and the broader society to understand that we must raise the bar. To convey to them and to many of us that they too should be able to dream big and reach for the stars.”Jobs Corps will reach out to parents of young people, he said, giving them training “in understanding what their children will be experiencing and assist them in ways that will be supportive of the process”.He said the initiative would have involvement from financial, business sector and administrative positions in the private sector, in which black males get disproportionately few job chances.Meanwhile medical training certification and degree programmes not currently on offer at Bermuda College are being strongly considered.He said: “This Government and the Ministry of Community Development wishes to see a better life of our young men.“For too long we have not directed enough attention and have not afforded the type of opportunities for young black males in particular that they need in order to truly succeed across the board in Bermuda.“We can best make good in our responsibility to these young men and generations of young men to come by finally making the systemic changes through policy and legislative changes, where necessary, to honour our commitment.“That commitment on our part must include a determination in my view, that never again will we as a society undervalue and blindly squander the great human potential of any of our people.“With respect to our young black males, for a number of generations, we have done exactly that. No more must this be the reality for far too many of them, as it was for their fathers and grandfathers.”Mr Weeks noted the Mincy Report was commissioned in 2007, before the escalation of gang violence on the Island.“The Columbia University study was necessary because even before the death and mayhem that our Country has endured over the last three years, all statistical and anecdotal evidence, such as it was, indicated that Bermuda had a serious problem with respect to the societal outcomes of its black male population in terms of education, earnings, incarceration rates and other indicators,” he said.Mr Weeks alluded to findings of institutionalised racism and warned: “We too will ignore this recommendation as we have in the past, at our own peril.”He noted surveys have repeatedly shown whites earn more than blacks regardless of the level of education.“We can ignore these facts, as we often do; but that does not make the facts disappear,” he said.“I contend that the prevalence of these types of racial disparities have eaten away at our society like a cancer at the heart of our social compact.“I bring up this point to emphasise that not only must we fix education and our workforce development system, especially as it relates to our boys and young black men but we must also vigorously tackle the structural factors, racial discrimination being one of them, that contribute to these multi generational outcomes that should concern and distress all of us.”Relating to personal tales of black men who have been unable to get the same professional opportunities as whites, he said: “The signal that this sent and continues to send throughout our community, particularly in our black male community historically, has been to reinforce the notion that perhaps higher education is a luxury that a black man cannot afford. That it was one, considering the investment of time and money, that was fraught with too much risk.“That maybe it was better for us to work with our hands.”He said the Columbia University study should not be ignored like previous warnings have been.“I assert that it has been our inability to address this issue during an earlier era that has only resulted in the growing complexity which surrounds this issue,” he said.“This will undoubtedly result in it being even more difficult to unravel; but not impossible in our efforts to finally get it right.“It is clear that we have reached a critical consensus across Bermuda for the need for us to act and this Government, led by the Ministry of Development and our governmental and other partners are determined to do just that.“The stakes are high, as we were rudely reminded only three weeks ago with the news of the so called drive-by shooting on Court Street that left a young woman with gunshot wounds.“To be brutally honest, what the Government is attempting to do now in advancing systemic change in this regard should not have taken as long as it has.“Nothing pains me more than to have to witness the real pain and struggles that are affecting many of our young people and the families that love them.“I pledge as Minister, I will do everything in my power to not only help those in need now; but to ensure that the five, seven and ten-year-olds of today will not face the same outcomes tomorrow, as is the case with the generation which precedes them.”Useful website: www.crfc.columbia.edul More on MPs debating plight of young black males see page 4