Put actions to your words – Trinidad Youth Minister tells Caribbean Summit on youth crime and violence

Jan 17, 2019 News

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By Rehanna Ramsay
The Caribbean summit on youth crime and violence is a call to action for stakeholders and representatives of young people across the Region.
Trinidad and Tobago’s Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs, Shamfa Cudjoe, underscored the need for more action on youth policies and programmes tackling violence and crime at the closing of the summit held at the Guyana Marriott Hotel in Kingston.
The two-day Caribbean summit, which was aimed at examining and redefining violence prevention solutions for young people, brought together youth leaders, who concluded that crime and security is an issue that is having an impact on all 15 members of the regional integration grouping.
The forum is being hosted by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat, UNICEF, the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the London-based Commonwealth Secretariat, the St. Lucia-based Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States Commission, and the Caribbean Learning for Youth Networking and Change Sessions (LYNCS) Network.
During the closing ceremony yesterday, the Trinidadian Youth Minister told the gathering of the need for follow-up action, while noting that the conversation on tackling youth crime and violence started decades ago.
“This is an important call to action for all stakeholders. The big question to you now is ‘what am I going to do when I return home?’ because the Government needs your help in order to make the goals once set, a reality.”
“I have witnessed conference after conference happen where people attend; they dress fancy and talk nice. However what happens after that is critical. Your efforts should not stop at the level of talk,” she stressed.
“We have been having the same conversation over and over again. Over the years, we have USAID, CARICOM and United Nations investing money in these workshops and seminars. We must not allow our hard work to go to waste.
So, when you get the information and the skills, take it back to your communities and implement them. Utilise your youth spaces and programmes, build partnerships which help you to execute your objectives!”
Cudjoe noted too the importance of building network which can help facilitate, the goals that have been set.
You cannot achieve the objectives on your own, so build partnerships; establish links and exchange ideas and programmes which can assist you in your cause…
The Trinidad Youth Minister issued a direct call to policy makers in this regard.
“I want to turn my attention to the Directors of Youth. You have a tremendous amount of power that you are not using…You are responsible for establishing the youth agenda but you like to say you are waiting on the Government or the Minister for the work to be carried out. That is not so, the Minister is a political figure you ought to have a youth agenda which is a robust call to action that is available no matter which Government is in place.
“So do not tell the young people that you’re waiting on the Minister because Ministers are looking to you for a plan and for your guidance.”
Cudjoe’s call to action follows on close heels with the statement of Secretary General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Irwin LaRocque who on Tuesday told attendees of the summit that youth violence and crime in the Caribbean demand a regional solution.
“It is a regional problem that demands a regional solution. It not only requires the full co-operation of all our countries but also all the stakeholders within the member states.
“The multi-state, multi-sectoral response to this challenge is vital for us to succeed in defeating it,” LaRocque told the gathering.
The CARICOM Secretary General noted, too, that youth are the demographic that is most affected by crime and violence and that some of the main findings of recent studies are that the majority of victims, as well as perpetrators of crimes recorded by the police, are young males 18 to 35 years old.
He alluded to a UNDP report as indicating that the Caribbean has some of the highest figures of youth convicted of crime with at least 80 percent of prosecuted crimes being committed by young people between the ages 19 and 29 years old.
“There are a number of socio-economic determinants of crime, not least of which is the high youth unemployment rate in the region of 25 percent in 2017.
That is three times the adult average and highest among young women ages 18 to 30 at 33 percent,” he said, adding that to combat this scourge, Caribbean leaders approved the CARICOM Crime and Security Strategy in 2013, which incorporates the CARICOM Social Development and Crime Prevention Action Plan.

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