A non-governmental group in Guyana has, over the years, been impacting greatly on the lives of young Guyanese, and even on the lives of youths in the wider Caribbean.

Caribbean Youth Environment Network, Guyana (CYEN) has been formed locally with its mandate geared at empowering youths and their communities to develop programmes and actions to address socio-economic and environmental issues.
Speaking to the entity’s Public Relations Officer, Ruqayyah Boyer, who incidentally is the reigning Miss Guyana Universe, this newspaper was informed that CYEN views youth as an important and critical development resource; and that the organisation is dedicated to developing strategies to engage and facilitate participation of youth in the development process.
Miss Boyer said the CYEN programme/network aims at addressing social and environmental issues, among which are poverty alleviation and youth employment, health (HIV/AIDS), climatic changes, conservation, waste management, and other natural resources’ management issues.
The CYEN motto stipulates “Unity, Strength, Purpose”, and the network’s mission is geared at improving the quality of life of Caribbean youth by facilitating personal development of the youth and promoting their full involvement in all matters pertaining to the environment and sustainable development.
The CYEN mission also includes promoting education and training, and Caribbean integration and community empowerment as tools to develop an ethnic awareness amongst young people, which would assist in the conservation and protection of natural resources within the wider Caribbean.

Vision
CYEN will be the leading youth environment and development network in the region, responsible for creating an appropriate space for young people to participate in the design, development, implementation and promotion of new, progressive, equitable, innovative and sustainable environmental, economic and social development policies and programmes across the wider Caribbean.

Affiliation & membership
CYEN is an associate member of the International Students Movement of the United Nations (ISMUN), and is officially recognized by the Secretariat of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and Drought (UNCCD) as a member of RIOD.  The network is a member organization of the Caribbean Network for Integrated Rural Development (CNIRD) and an affiliate partner of the Caribbean Conservation Association (CCA). Beyond this, CYEN has a consultative relationship with the Caribbean Policy Development Centre (CPDC), and is a lead agency in the execution of the annual International Coastal Cleanup that is coordinated by Ocean Conservancy.

The PRO said this organisation partners with more than twenty-nine organisations, and with more than three hundred individual members across eighteen Caribbean territories, inclusive of Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, the British Virgin Islands, the Dominican Republic, the Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St, Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad & Tobago. Affiliate diaspora members reside in Bermuda, Britain, Canada and the USA.

Member and affiliate organizations of the CYEN include Foundation for Youth Welfare (Suriname); Guybernet (Guyana); Institute for Future Global Leaders (Trinidad and Tobago); Junior Environment and Development Institute (Trinidad and Tobago), and the Grenada Youth Environment Network.
Added to that, there are the following organizations: Friends of the Earth – Grenada (Grenada); JEMS Community Organisation (St. Vincent); CYEN -Barbados (Barbados); CYEN – St. Lucia; Silver Shadows; COTEC, and the Mabouya Valley Environment Club (St. Lucia).
There are also the Dominica Youth Environment Organisation of the Commonwealth of Dominica; the CYEN – Antigua & Barbuda Environmental Awareness Group; St. Christopher Heritage Society (St. Kitts & Nevis); Association Femmes Soleil d’ Haiti, (AFASDA);National Environmental Societies Trust; Trelawny Youth Leaders Association, and the International School of Jamaica, all located in the Land of Reggae, Jamaica. There is also the YMCA of Belize, which is another branch organisation in Belize.

Activities & projects
Since its establishment in 1992, the network has coordinated or participated in a number of activities and projects at the national, regional and international levels.
Significantly, the network has frequently sourced and financed short-term training scholarships for youth to attend leadership and other training courses.
Beyond this, the network has been actively involved in advocacy, environmental education, and public awareness programmes.
CYEN frequently represents the position of Caribbean youth at regional and international meetings.

Activity synopsis
Some of the events and activities in which CYEN has been involved are the hosting of the Caribbean Youth Environment and Development Congress in Montserrat (1993); hosting of the Caribbean Youth Environment and Development Congress in Dominica (1995); facilitating the Caribbean’s participation in the United Nations Environment Programme’s Global Youth Forum in New York (1992), Colorado (1993), Washington DC (1994), California (1995), and Denmark (2001); and participating in the International Youth Leadership Training Workshop hosted by the Consumers’ Association of Penang in Malaysia (1993).
That aside, CYEN has also organised a regional poster competition that focused on “The island family and sustainable development” in 1994, and managed the Youth NGO Forum, Youth Ecofest’94, which ran parallel to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States in Barbados in 1994, besides participating in the Global Women’s Conference held in Beijing, China in 1995.
CYEN representatives were trained at the World Youth Leadership Training Summit held at United Nations’ Headquarters in 1995, and also attended the Raleigh International Expedition held in Guyana (1995).
They participated in the Children First Global Forum held in Atlanta (1996), and also took part in the Assembly of Caribbean Youth (ACY) held in Trinidad (1996).
A delegation attended the 14th World Festival of Youth and Students in Cuba (1997), even as the organisation hosted Earth Matters Exhibitions in Barbados (1997 & 1998). They also participated in UNCCD meeting (Antigua in 1998, Peru in 1999) and the RIOD meeting in Cuba (2001), while a delegation attended the Caribbean Youth Festival in Dominica (1999).

Other CYAN activities included:
•    Coordinating the Caribbean’s participation in the Millennium Young People’s Congress, held in Hawaii in 1999.
•    Participated in GEO for youth in Latin America and the Caribbean meeting in Mexico in 2001.
•    Participated in the UNCCD Benchmarks and Indicators workshop in St. Lucia in 2002.
•    Participated in the UNEP Global Youth Forum in Denmark in 2002.
•    Got involved in the First Caribbean Environmental Forum in St. Lucia in 2002.
•    Coordinated the Caribbean International Coastal Cleanup Coordinators meeting in St. Lucia in 2002.
•    Attended the Assembly of the Caribbean Network for Integrated Rural Development in St. Lucia in 2002.
•    Attended the International Coastal Cleanup meeting in San Diego, USA in 2002; and at Virginia Beach, USA in 2003.
•    Coordinated the introductory meeting for GEO for youth of the Caribbean in St. Lucia in 2004.
•    Represented the Caribbean Civil Society grouping at the SIDS+10 in Mauritius in 2005.
•    Participated in the UNEP Global Youth Retreat in Nairobi, Kenya in 2005.
•    Participated in the UNEP Governing Council meeting in Nairobi, Kenya in 2005.

Mandate
Mandate of the Guyanese Chapter of CYEN is parallel to the regional network. Since its initial establishment in 2001, CYEN GUYANA has coordinated or participated in a number of activities and projects at the national, regional and international levels
More specifically:
•    United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and CARICOM Workshop on “Strengthening the Enabling Environment for Implementing the Sub- regional and National SCP Action Plans, from February 24th -26th 2010
•    United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), where it represented the Caribbean at the Conference of the Parties (COP 15) in Denmark from December 6th to 18th, 2009
•    Participated in Caribbean Youth Environment Network (CYEN) and 350.Org- Climate Change Advocacy and Media Training in Dominican Republic from August 8th to 16th, 2009
•    Participated in Caribbean Youth Environment Network and TUNZA-Youths Involvement in Sustainable Development in August, 2007
•    Organized clean ups, community work, school presentations, and other exercises relating to the environment.

For the year 2013, the entity has hosted a Career Day exhibition at the University of Guyana; re-Launched CYEN: Guyana at the University of Guyana; conducted the first virtual TUNZA youth consultation on water cooperation;, and in March month spearheaded the ‘Action Learning Network’ (ALN) hosted by the Volunteerism Support Platform.
There was a ceremonial tree-planting exercise conducted in the Botanical Garden to commemorate International Day of Forests; CYEN celebrated Earth Hour under the theme “Our Earth, Our Future” with a video production.
Just recently in April, CYEN conducted a workshop on intellectual property rights and environmental creations in Guyana at the Education Lecture Theatre (ELT) of the University of Guyana.
Currently, CYEN are engaged in bird-watching activities in recognition of International Migratory Species Day
CYEN future projects will include workshops on leadership and organizational skills, importance of volunteerism, and travel collaboration and exchange with CYEN Team Suriname.
To learn more about this organization, readers are urged to visit its local facebook page at http: //www.facebook.com/groups/CYENGuyana/, or by checking out its regional website at www.cyen.org, or by emailing the organisation at guyana@cyen.org

CYEN Guyana comprises Godfrey Scott as President, Amir Dillawar as Vice President, Nakasi Fortune as Treasurer, and Hollyann France as Secretary.
Ruqayyah Boyer is presently the Public Relations Officer (PRO).