GoodHeart | Leiseth Chambers still on a mission to empower youths

For 2025, Leiseth Chambers, the founder of the charity group ID Pioneers, is committed to expanding her efforts to help Jamaicans, particularly youths across the island, find purpose and their true identity. After completing her master’s degree in the United States nearly a decade ago, Chambers was deeply affected by the Gully versus Gaza conflict among Jamaican youths. Feeling a strong calling to make a difference, she returned to Jamaica to help create positive change. Chambers founded ID Pioneers with her own investment, enlisting the support of her faith community, co-workers and friends to help build the charity.

After dedicating seven years of her time and energy to ID Pioneers, Chambers decided to take a break in 2024 with plans to return in 2025. With the new year just around the corner, she is now excited to resume her work.

“We were operating for seven years and 2023 was our most significant year, where we reached over 800 youths and over 100 workers. That was a milestone year for us, and, of course, one would think that you are now ready to go, [but] we are a spirit-led organisation, and so any decision that we are taking, we take those decisions with God’s guidance, and seeking God, and all of a sudden, we’re hearing rest; we’re hearing reset; we’re hearing strengthening the foundations, strengthening those things that exist. And, we realised that the more we reflected on it was the more we realised that there was more wisdom in it,” Chambers told GoodHeart.

She added, “We needed to assess our sustainability systems. For the first seven years, all the services that we offered were at no cost. We needed to look at the current programmes and also assess how much the programmes are effective in meeting the needs of the youths. We needed to scale back with a view to launch even further, so you’re going slow now with a view to be able to go faster later. We realised that in order to be in operation for the long haul, we need to be able to be sustainable.”

Chambers is now aiming to expand ID Pioneers’ offerings to include mentorship programmes for groups willing to pay for the service. She emphasises that sustaining the charity requires funding, which is necessary to continue helping those in need. Over the past seven years, Chambers focused on mentoring youths in Jamaica’s children’s homes. Many of these youths graduated and later contributed to mentoring others. Chambers is proud of the impact she has had, transforming lives for the better.

“Everybody has this basic need to understand who they are and why they are here on Earth. There is this need for meaning and I think about Generation Alpha, the millennial and Generation Z who are generations that are driven by meaning and more purpose-driven careers, the idea was to expand the offerings. I realised that the world we are living in, one that is described as a VUCA– Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous– means that there is much that we need to change in order to navigate the difficulties of the environment that we’re in.”

Chambers pointed out that even during the pandemic, she persisted, inspiring youths in need through online sessions and training. Many of the young people she mentored went on to become mentors themselves.

“During the COVID pandemic, our team remained resolute and through their resilience, we were able to serve over 100 through our COVID-19 Link Up Series and our mastermind challenge. Empowering them with a sense of hope [and] purpose and supporting them to have a solution-oriented mindset and an optimistic outlook on life during the difficult time,” she explained.

In the children’s homes over the years, she tried her utmost to spread the message of “identity and purpose” which will remain the foundation of ID Pioneers.

“At my core, it is purpose and wanting to support individuals to understand they need to put priority around purpose. At ID Pioneers, we are proud to be a Jamaican organisation that is in service to its fellow citizens. Our intention has always been to be able to offer services of identity, purpose fulfilment, planning, life styling, coaching, training, mentoring services to individuals,” Chambers said.

She has words of advice for youths who feel like their world is shattered.

“It does not matter what your background is. It does not matter what your experience is, because that does not define you. It is an experience, but it does not shape who you are. In fact, when you were created, your manufacturer, who is God, would have put a brand on you; his brand, which says you are loved and accepted and chosen and special and unique and you are fearfully and wonderfully made,” she said.

Persons interested in becoming mentors with ID Pioneers can connect with them through their Instagram page via the handle @idpioneers .

ainsworth.morris@gleanerjm.com