Youth Ministers to consider micro-enterprise project, male under-achievement in 2001
The establishment of a micro-enterprise project to enhance employment opportunities and the issue of male under-achievement are among priorities CARICOM Ministers of Youth are to consider when they meet in 2001. In his remarks at the opening ceremony of the first Model CARICOM Youth Summit at the National Cultural Centre Thursday evening, CARICOM's Assistant Secretary General, Dr Edward Greene, said that the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is placing emphasis on achieving a youth agenda that is defined by youth and for youth. Dr Greene recalled that when CARICOM Ministers of Youth met for the first time as a group in a ministerial caucus in Georgetown on October 5, they addressed the resolutions that were passed by the Caribbean Youth Explosion and Youth Parliament held in Grenada in July. This policy-making body, he said, had to admit that there is need to activate a meaningful youth agenda. The ministers are now due to meet again in 2001 to consider specific challenges and ways to provide necessary support to implement some of the major priorities. Apart from the micro-enterprise project to enhance employment opportunities among young people, Dr Greene said the issue of male under-achievement is a cause for concern. "One manifestation of this," he said, "is the startling statistic from the University of the West Indies (Mona Campus) in Jamaica that whereas in 1990 the ratio of males to females graduating with degrees and diplomas was approximately 55% male and 45% female, at the November 2000 graduation the ratio had changed dramatically to 75% female and 25% male. When this is taken in conjunction with the high number of males between the ages of 18 and 24 years who are incarcerated and the high death rate of young males due to violence - 15% in Jamaica, Dr Greene declared that the time for complacency had long passed. In addition, he said, there are vexing issues such as increases in teen pregnancy between ages 13 and 15; increases in violence against young females; and increases in reported cases of incest, some of which involve juveniles. "No wonder," he noted, "HIV/AIDS is so rampant among the youths." On the subject of HIV/AIDS, Dr Greene said that the Caribbean Epidemiological Research Centre, headquartered in Trinidad, estimates that given present trends one in every five youths between ages 15 and 29 years is likely to die annually - unless behaviour patterns and preventative strategies in sexual practices are drastically overhauled. On the Caribbean Single Market Economy (CSME), Dr Greene said that CARICOM is awaiting evaluations and suggestions from the young people as to the best strategies and options. He said that some of the questions they need to ponder is how it can be fashioned in the best interest of the world they will live in and what are the processes that would make it possible for them to maintain national allegiances while thinking regionally. He suggested that young people consider that the region and the world is moving from an old economic world order to a new one with opportunities as well as risks. Some of the challenges facing the CSME, he said, relate to the need for new skills to cope with the emerging environment, among which are access to education which is at the heart of a technology revolution (information technology); access to communication; access to jobs; and redefinition of the work-place. Other areas he looked at were youths taking civic responsibility; youth in leadership-training and opportunities for leadership; and leadership challenges. Dr Greene joined President Bharrat Jagdeo, who delivered the keynote address, in congratulating the Rotary and Rotaract clubs for organising the three-day model youth summit in collaboration with the CARICOM Secretariat. Some 18 youths between ages 15 and 19 years drawn from Rotaract and youth groups in nine CARICOM countries have been taking part in the summit which is dealing with a number of issues affecting young people in the region. The delegates who will be taking on the role of Prime Ministers and leaders of their respective countries are from Antigua, Barbados, Grenada, St Kitts. St Lucia, St Vincent, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana. Guyanese substituted for those CARICOM countries that were unable to send representatives. Secretary General of the CARICOM Model Youth Summit and President of the Rotaract Club of Georgetown, Pearson Burch-Smith, chaired the opening session which was enlivened by cultural performances from the Mainstay Dance Troupe and the National Dance Company, the Korokwa Folk Singing Group and the Guyana Police Force Band. Also officiating at the opening ceremony were Assistant District Governor, Rotary, John Bart, and Director of International Service of the Rotary Club of Georgetown, Dunstan Barrow.
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