THE CONTROVERSIAL "Project Oasis" has dried up.

The new Government has taken the project, meant to bring relief for the "boys on the block" and other disadvantaged, low-income groups, off its list.

Minister of Family, Youth Affairs, Sports and the Environment, Esther Byer-Suckoo, said yesterday that Government was discontinuing the programme, but pressing for a broader range of projects to help disadvantaged groups.

Government was concerned that Project Oasis had become just "a political gimmick", she told the DAILY NATION.

Byer-Suckoo was addressing the Pentecostal Assemblies of the West Indies' youth ministries leadership retreat at the Insurance Corporation of Barbados building in Roebuck Street, Bridgetown.

"In the latter phases of Project Oasis, it did for many people represent just a boys-on-the-block programme with the weed-whackers," she added.

"Of course, we know it is so much more but the image that was created of Project Oasis was that."

Government had decided to look again at Project Oasis and see how it could use those resources better for youth development, according to the minister.

"So what we are doing now is more of a mainstreaming programme where, instead of having the boys-on-the-block committees, just three or four folks who are just looking for a few individuals that they can put into that Project Oasis, we can serve more people in our community."

Project Oasis had served a few people but the numbers were "smaller than we would like", the minister complained.

"We have our 30-32 youth commissioners out there now and their job is to look for projects, to look for people across the length and breadth of Barbados and by having more ears out there, more eyes out there, we know we will have a better yield, a bigger crop of people that we can bring into the programme," Byer-Suckoo said.

"We are still going to have the training programmes but it's more of a mainstreaming effect, where we will be bringing the folks in, getting them involved in various activities." (TY)