Young people have been invited to join the Royal Bermuda Regiment’s Junior Leaders to help develop self-reliance, initiative and teamwork skills.

Captain Gavin Rayner, commandant of the youth programme, hopes to increase its ranks to 50 so that more seasoned members can expand their duties.

“It’s a nice number to work with kids,” he said. “Because we’re the military, we have rank structures as well and that’s afforded them in the junior programme.

“We put on training for them so that they can be promoted, then they can start taking on more responsibility at whatever rank they are.

“With 50 or 60 kids, we will need peer mentoring. The adults are there but ultimately as a leader, we want them to be in a position to teach their own friends, teach kids younger than them and so forth.”

As the RBR’s youth wing, Junior Leaders offers military activities for people aged from 13 to 18, including field craft, supervised rifle training and drills.

The youngsters take part in parades, while community efforts might involve beach clean-ups.

A partnership arrangement means that Junior Leaders can also earn credits towards Duke of Edinburgh Awards.

About 12 youngsters are part of the current regular cohort of Junior Leaders, with training typically held on two Friday evenings and a weekend each month.

Captain Rayner said the programme taught the young people self-reliance and leadership skills.

He added: “Also to have some initiative, and thinking about what they’re doing, what comes next.”

Captain Rayner said that teenagers joined for different reasons, including “the go-getters that come and want the adventure”.

Others might be somewhat shy but then find themselves in situations where they “come out of their shell”.

Captain Rayner gave the assurance: “They can all benefit from it.”

· More information and enrolment forms can be found at www.bermudaregiment.bm/junior-leaders.