Youth groups fail to elect representative
Stabroek News
November 2, 2002
Only six of the twenty-six youth groups named in the Schedule to the Act creating the Ethnic Relations Commission turned up to a meeting last week to elect the youth representative to the Commission.
Dr Frank Anthony, who chairs the National Commission on Youth and who was asked by the Clerk of the National Assembly to convene the meeting, said last week's meeting was the second unsuccessful attempt to select a representative. At the first meeting several weeks earlier only three organisations were represented. He said a third attempt would be made later this month but a date is yet to be set.
The six organisations represented at the meeting were the Dharmic Sabha Youth Arm, the Progressive Youth Organisation, The United Force's Youth Arm, the National Youth Commission, which is the advisory body to the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, the Volunteer Youth Corps and the Gandhi Youth Organisation.
The others invited were the Youth Ambassadors of the First Assembly of God, the Guyana Youth and Students Movement, the TUC Youth Movement, the Church of Christ Youth Group, the Boy Scouts Association, the Girl Scouts Association, the Young Men's Christian Association, the Young Women's Christian Association, the Roman Catholic Youth Office, the Moravian Youth Club, the Full Gospel Youth Fellow-ship, the Guyana Junior Chamber, the Methodist Youth Club, the University of Guyana Students' Society, the Seventh Day Adventists' Pathfinders, the Muslim Youth Organisation, the Working People's Alliance's Youth Organisation, the Georgetown Youth Leaders Council, the Guyana Congregational Young People's Union, the Guyana Responsible Parenthood Under 20s Club.
The Ethnic Relations Act, assented to with much fanfare in August 2000, provides for the umbrella organisations for the Christian, Hindu and Moslem religions, the private sector and the labour, youth, and women movements to be represented on the Commission.
The Commission should have been in operation before the March 2001 elections but the Parliament Office did not send out the invitations inviting nominations until April 2001.