(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Guyana Minister of Youth Culture and Sport, Hon Dr Frank Anthony made a strong plea on Thursday to Member States of the Caribbean Community to pay greater attention to the CARICOM Youth Ambassador Program (CYAP).

Minister Frank Anthony used the platform of the opening ceremony of the 22nd Meeting of the Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD) in Guyana to impress upon his colleague ministers and other delegations from Member States, the need for “renewed commitment to the CARICOM Youth Ambassador Program to ensure that it realizes its fullest potential in developing a cadre of young leaders, committed to regionalism.”

The CYAP is the Community’s primary mechanism for leadership development and youth participation. The Youth Ambassadors (CYA’s) are the Community’s focal points for deepening the regional integration and development process through advocacy and peer education initiatives. However, recently the sustainability of the program has been severely threatened because of a paucity of financial resources to support the program.

Minister Frank Anthony who is chairing the COHSOD Meeting, noted that the CYAP was an important tool to facilitate youth development in the Region and should not be allowed to lag: “We need to ensure that youth are treated as invaluable assets and important partners in national and regional development and that they are fully integrated in the work of the Caribbean Community,” he stressed.

Minister Anthony told the Meeting that there was urgent need for the Community to redouble efforts to address the scourge of youth gangs, and violence across the region and asserted that the CYAs provided valuable peer leadership in this area.

He also called on the COHSOD to renew their commitment to follow-up on the recommendations of the CARICOM Commission on Youth Development and the Declaration of Paramaribo on the Future of Youth in the Caribbean Community, made in January 2010 in Suriname.

In remarking on the importance of sports to youth development, the Guyana Minister of Sport spoke to the need to ensure that young people pursue healthy and active lifestyles, and at least ensure that physical education is compulsory in the school curriculum. This he stated would help to “stem the rising tide of Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases” the region.

He pointed to the importance of sports as a development tool and told his audience that the time had come to explore how the Community can leverage an area of comparative advantage for the region; upgrade and make better use of sports infrastructure to generate income for our countries. He referred to the establishment of the Regional Sport Academy in Suriname as a “well-needed initiative that would help to further develop human resources in sports.”

The Guyana Minister of Culture whose country staged CARIFESTA X in 2008, also made a strong plug for the region’s premier festival of the creative arts, calling upon Member States who are hosting this mega event to implement the new model. This he stated, was necessary to ensure that the Festival met the expectations of both artists and Caribbean audiences, and served as an important platform for developing vibrant cultural and creative industries.

Minister Frank Anthony also noted the challenges that regional artistes faced under the free Movement of Skills Regime of the CSME, and called upon Member States to pay more attention to this issue.

“We also need renewed action and attention to the free movement of artists, cultural workers and sportspersons in the region, to ensure that they travel hassle-free and are enabled to play an integral role in promoting integration, identity and wealth creation.”

“We now have an Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union and we need to increase our efforts to realize the potential benefits for the artistic community in CARICOM,” the Minister concluded.

Meanwhile, Dean of the CARICOM Youth Ambassador Program, Grenada’s Kerry Frank thanked Minister Anthony for his “renewed interest” in the CYAP and added that while he did not expect the Meeting to find solutions to all the problems affecting youth in just two days; he was expecting the COHSOD to advocate for strategies that would ensure greater youth involvement at the highest decision making level of the Community. Mr Frank referred to the Conference of Heads of Government, advocating for youth participation in both its regular and inter-sessional meetings.

“Heads of Government meet twice per year but never on those delegations do we see youth represented. I believe … this is one area that needs to be improved as we move forward,” Mr Frank concluded.

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