– declares CARICOM Youth Ambassador
“EMPOWER US now for the survival of the Community!” was the impassioned plea made by Dominica’s Monelle Alexis, Dean of the CARICOM Youth Ambassador Corps, to Caribbean Community leaders on behalf of youth across the Caribbean Region.

Youth Leaders, Ministers and CCS staff getting down to business at the Regional Youth Forum in the Surinamese capital, Paramaribo, on Thursday.

Alexis was delivering her remarks at the opening of the special summit of CARICOM Heads of Government on youth development convened to receive the Report of two-and-half-years of qualitative research conducted by the 15-member CARICOM Commission on Youth Development.

According to a CARICOM Secretariat release, she was critical of the absence of several Heads of Government from the Summit, noting that they had failed to grasp the symbolic significance of the moment, considering that the year 2010 was designated as the International Year of Youth.

Alexis said the moment was further lost in a cruel situational irony that those who purported to be gravely concerned about the future of youth and had mandated the Commission to conduct the research, did not find the time to attend and receive the Report.

She noted nevertheless that youth would continue to contribute to the development process and pleaded for the voice of youth in Community development and at the national level to be stronger.

And in keeping with the theme of the Summit, ‘YOUTH NOW for the Community Tomorrow’, Alexis took the position that the old paradigm that “youth are leaders of tomorrow” must give way to a new kind of philosophy that “youth are creative and a valuable asset; not a problem to be solved.”

CARICOM Secretary-General, Mr. Edwin Carrington shares a light moment with Youth directors and Dr Heather Johnson, Deputy Programme Manager for Youth Development at the CARICOM Secretariat.

We want to participate NOW! We have demonstrated repeatedly that we can contribute now! If the future of the Community rests squarely on our shoulders, as the mandate of Heads of Government have implied, then our dress rehearsal begins NOW!” she declared, adding:
Consider whether those decisions that you have taken about us, without us, have worked; consider whether the millions of dollars spent on youth-related interventions have worked; consider that they might not have worked because you did not involve us…”

“Charge us!” she urged, “and we guarantee you, you will reap returns on your investments!”

Following her fiery speech, which was greeted with thunderous applause, Alexis led her peers in nine minutes of silence as a demonstration of what she said was their displeasure at those Heads of Government who would not be attending the Meeting.

The nine minutes, she explained, represented the nine million young people across the region.

Antigua and Barbuda’s CARICOM Youth Ambassador, Cleveroy Thomas, rehearses the lyrics of a new song titled, ‘You’, with Haiti’s youth representative, Junior Mercier

Chairman of the Conference, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit of Dominica, in his remarks, cautioned the youth to be reasoned and responsible in their calls for greater participation, pointing out that millions were already invested in youth development, while Suriname’s President and Lead Head of Government for Youth, Mr. Ronald Venetiaan, in a direct reference to the protest and an attempt at humour, said: “I came to this podium to declare the Summit open, but after that demonstration, perhaps I should declare it open and closed.”

The business sessions of the Summit continued yesterday with Heads of Government and Heads of delegation getting down to business to comb through the Report with the Commissioners.

Prime Minister Skerrit had given the nod of approval at the opening ceremony, but had indicated that there were some ‘grey’ areas for which he did not approve. Those troubling areas were to be discussed yesterday, the release added.