Organizing youth for leadership roles in Guyana

May 30, 2015 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
Encouraged by the present government’s expressed commitment to respectfully listen to citizens,  to responsibly spend our monies and initiate action to address concerns of women and youth, a number of sympathizers have been offering suggestions.
I have read calls for the creation of a Ministry of Youth; also calls for the creation of a Ministry of Women’s Affairs. Then there are those who opine that there are not enough young persons as senior Ministers.
For me, while in a perfect situation I would love to see young people running most of the ministries, I have to temper that desire by some realities that face the nation at the moment: the hidden deals; the extent to which the previous government went to hide devious transactions; the subtleties employed in wording of contracts; the movement of money around – all done to confuse and avoid detection.
Detecting these and being able to possibly recover our monies, I think, can best be achieved with the presence of experienced and knowledgeable persons at the helm of ministries. So yes, I can see the need to have the youth ministers being junior ministers for the time, and most adult educators agree that on-the-job training is most effective when dealing with adults.
The truth is that, for example, making a young person a Minister of Youth will not by itself create the conditions for young people to have a meaningful voice in shaping youth development and influencing national development.
Dr. Frank Anthony was a young man when he was made minister with responsibility for youth. Yet one can’t point to any action taken by his ministry that led to the birth of a process that allows for young people to be able to influence national policy. His focus for the Youth Department was – organizing young people for dancing in the streets during Mashramani; organizing and running August holiday camps and organizing a few of what was called youth leadership training.
Apparently Ex-Minister Anthony did not have a clear idea of what a progressive Youth Department should be doing? Preparing young people for involvement in Mashramani celebrations, organizing of August camps and the running of youth training programmes are activities best left to youth groups to organize and manage with support from the Youth Department.
It was nothing else but a waste of human resources to have Youth Officers who are mostly all holders of diplomas and/or degrees in social work, busying themselves with transporting and supervising the distribution of snacks at camps.
If young people are to have a voice and influence national decision-making, there needs to be in place a National Youth Council.
I noticed in your edition of 9th March 2015, photographs of Mr. Christopher Jones and Mr. Trevor Williams who are described as representatives of a “Guyana National Youth Council.” If I am correct these two young men are representatives of APNU and the AFC respectively. I have heard of no forum that was called at which young Guyanese elected these gentlemen as their representatives. I urge President Granger to put an end to this type of useless farce. As a nation we have clowned around enough with the issue of youth development.
For there to be an authentic National Youth Council, it is first necessary for there to be Regional Youth Councils. There should be representatives from 10 Regional Youth Councils, plus a representative from a Georgetown Youth Council.
Further, each Regional Youth Council should have representation at the level of their specific Regional Democratic Council. In the case of Georgetown, representation should be at the level of the City Council. One remembers that Kwame McCoy was the youth representative at the Georgetown City Council – again the young people of Georgetown never elected him to represent them.
It would be the responsibility of the government, through its Ministry with responsibility for youth, to provide office space for the National Youth Council and to provide finances for its functioning, for perhaps the first two years. The space offered should comfortably house two or three fulltime staffers.
Regional Administrations should have similar responsibilities to their Regional Youth Councils. After their initial two years, both the National Youth Council and the Regional Youth Councils should take responsibility for their own maintenance. This could be done through assistance from the business committees, international organizations in the business of promoting youth development, and their own efforts.
The main duties of this National Youth Council should be suggesting polices to the government – by way of the ministry with responsibility for youth development. It will also support Regional Youth Councils and interact with international agencies from which assistance could be had. The present Youth Department with the many qualified youth workers should be the main government agency offering assistance to both Regional and National Youth Councils on a daily basis.
With the National Youth Council in place, as much as possible, Guyana’s representatives at international youth conferences should be chosen by that Council. The practice of Ministers and Permanent Secretaries attending international youth conferences held in the developed world, while limiting young people to attending conferences in Caribbean territories, must end.
Two warnings: First, establishing the Regional Youth Councils will not be easy work, especially in regions like region 1, 8 and 9, and possibly 7 – if all the communities in Guyana are to be given a fair chance of representation. I fear the new government’s promise to have the National Youth Council in place within its first hundred days will be difficult to realize. I would only hope the need to satisfy promises does not spur the government to be careless in this matter.
For example, calling a regional representative via telephone in a far-flung area of a region, requesting that he/she select a young person as that community’s youth representative, will not work. All young persons living in a particular part of the region must have an opportunity to participate in the electing of his/her representative on the Regional Youth Council.
Arbitrary selection of a community’s representative, sending that person to the central office of the Regional Development Council to participate in elections leading to the creation of the Regional Youth Council, would not work. The Regional Democratic Councils comprise politicians; if the process and managing of same is left to them, one can expect the outcome to reflect their bias.
Secondly, between 1983 and 2006 I was likely involved in all major efforts at creating youth councils. A major hindrance to all of these efforts was the youth organs of both of the major political parties – the PPP and the PNC. Neither showed much interest in being involved in the formation of youth councils once their parent party was not in power. These two political youth groups had/have tremendous influence among other youth groups, and one got the distinct impression that they encouraged youth groups not to cooperate.
Since the PPP is not in power and seemingly set to not cooperate with the present government, we can expect the PYO to do its best to frustrate all attempts at establishing a National Youth Council.
Claudius Prince

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