Yesterday, The Royal Gazette launched a campaign to raise $1m for the New Beginnings Education Trust so it can continue to run programmes for the benefit of the young people of Bermuda. The target is by far our most ambitious to date.The campaign has two goals: Half the money raised will go directly into the provision of education grants for young people who have completed personal development programmes such as Mirrors, Raleigh International, De Boys Day Out Club, Bermuda Sloop Foundation, etc. The other half will be used to bring back the Mirrors Community Programme for 19 to 24 year olds.Unfortunately, some people have chosen to try and accuse us of running a political campaign and others have taken us to task for not publicising more of the positive exploits of the Island’s young people. That is a shame and only serves to detract from the purpose of the campaign which is to help today’s youth.It also seems to be an unfortunate fact that unless you are an ‘A’ or ‘B’ student, the education grants are hard to come by. It is another fact that as of March, the youth coaching programme showed that of the 195 students who completed the residential and nine-month follow through, 92, or 47 percent, graduated from high school; 68, or 35 percent, were getting their high school diploma — and a total of 82 percent had either graduated or were enrolled in education.This is why we are supporting the New Beginnings Education Trust — as an investment in Bermuda’s young people and by extension, an investment in Bermuda’s future. Of course, we are aware that other organisations also help the Island’s young and we do not want this to detract from the excellent work they do, but we felt strongly that the Trust’s work covers areas that are critical.Too often we hear of the bad things that our young people do. Hopefully in the future the investment being proposed by the Trust will fill this newspaper with stories about the good things they are doing.Today and over the course of this week, we will bring you more stories about the benefits of the Mirrors programme and the work of the New Beginnings Education Trust. We hope that you will support us in supporting our young people.