Young people are vital to ensuring a strong nation

Apr 07, 2019 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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By H.E. David Granger
If Guyana is to prosper and if young people are to be given the opportunity to lead, we must adopt a fresh approach to governance. The emphasis must be on reinforcing the four cornerstones of youth development – education, equality, empowerment and employment.
Your government, for this reason, has pursued a strategy of regional development. Our aim is to develop a nation of strong regions. Each region needs a centre, in the form of capital towns, for more balanced development.
Guyana is not two countries – a developed one East of the Essequibo and an underdeveloped one West of the Essequibo. This government established four new capital towns – at Bartica, Mabaruma, Mahdia and Lethem – in the four large hinterland regions in the first three years in office. Your Government aims, eventually, at ensuring that each region would possess its own capital town to deliver public services and to promote economic and social development. Each region should have:
– its own aerodromes, banks, courts, factories, hospitals, galleries and museums, newspapers, radio and television stations, passport and registrar’s offices, police stations, secondary schools, sporting stadiums, sub-treasuries and other amenities;
– the capacity to generate employment opportunities for its young people – by attracting investors, encouraging commerce with the Caribbean, neighbouring countries and other parts of the world and by developing thriving business districts, industrial parks, busy highways and bustling stellings; and
– the authority to assume greater responsibility for its own development; the holding of local government elections (twice in three years) and village council elections has revitalised local democracy and promoted greater participation of the people, including young people, in the decision-making and leadership of their communities.
Young people are vital to ensuring a strong nation of strong regions. The establishment of capital towns and the renewal of local democracy countrywide are engines of transformation and growth. Young people must prepare themselves to work in the ‘engine rooms’ of local, regional and national development. They must help to drive regional development. They must become instruments of change within their communities. Young people must be ready to lead.
Young people must defend and protect their birthright – our natural patrimony – against external threats. This country has over 2,900 km borders with Brazil; Venezuela; and Suriname and a 459 km Atlantic coastline. Young people are encouraged to become involved, voluntarily, in the Guyana Youth Corps and the Guyana People’s Militia in order to safeguard our nation’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Young people constitute half of our population. One in every five of our citizens is between the ages of 15 and 24. They cannot be ignored without undermining and imperilling the country’s future. Young people are the motors of change and progress. They possess the imagination to innovate, initiate and invent and the intuition to propel change.
Young people must be trained and empowered to assume leadership. It would be reckless of older persons to expect young people to lead by trial and error. They can learn to lead only when the state strengthens the foundation – through education, equality, employment and empowerment – which will support and sustain their leadership.
The Report of the Caribbean Community [CARICOM] Commission on Youth – entitled, Eye on the Future: Investing in Youth Now for Tomorrow’s Community of July 2010 – had urged:
In order for youth governance to be effective it must provide opportunities for young people to become empowered and to make a contribution to development through participation in decision-making generally but more specifically on matters in which they have an interest and which affect them.
Youth empowerment can strengthen the competencies of youth leaders, sharpen their talents and harden their resolve to allow them to assume responsibility for leading others.
Education is a basis of empowerment and the training of young people is an act of empowerment. The training of our youths is necessary if they are to be instruments of their own development and architects of their destiny.
Your Government, since 2015, has been enhancing educational opportunities for our young people. It has awarded 1,534 scholarships to students drawn from every administrative region, as part of our policy to provide education and training to youths.
Your Government is empowering youth by involving them in decision-making in their neighbourhoods and villages and at the regional and national levels. It is listening to the concerns of youth and giving them voice. More important, it is empowering our young people economically and providing them with opportunities for employment and entrepreneurship.
Youth empowerment will help to equip our young people with the skills, attitudes and values which are needed for them to become leaders. These attributes need to be inculcated in young people so that, when placed in positions of leadership, they could cope successfully with its demands.
Youth involvement must be seen not only in governmental terms but also in cultural expression and activities – including art, dance, drama, literature and sports – which encourage healthy interactions with other young people, boost, self-confidence and self-esteem and promote social cohesion and social cooperation.
The annual Upper Mazaruni District Games is a model of friendly sporting competition which brings together people from the villages of the Cuyuni-Mazaruni Region for one week of spirited sporting competition. Young people are encouraged not just to participate, but to be involved in, and organise such events.
Involvement in the work of social, non-political, self-managed clubs and non-governmental organisations can serve as apprenticeship for young leaders. It allows for young people to be exposed to skills in teamwork, managing groups and organizing events. It provides young people opportunities for the exercise of social responsibility.
Unemployment is the foremost challenge facing our youths. School graduates frequently face difficulties in securing satisfactory employment. Many of them seek jobs in the public sector but opportunities are limited. New means have to be found to create employment for our young people.
Unemployment has been exacerbated by changes with labour market which, increasingly, is being influenced by technology – computers, machines and innovative systems – which are replacing and reducing the need for workers.
Young people, faced with these challenges, must become more entrepreneurial in their outlook by seeking self-employment through the establishment of small businesses. Young people must be must look forward to becoming a generation of entrepreneurs and pioneers who are prepared to pursue new avenues of economic opportunities.
Your government is promoting job creation through self-employment. It is catalysing opportunities for youth entrepreneurship so that they can become self-employed. Initiatives aimed at developing the entrepreneurial skills of our young people include:
– Sustainable Livelihood and Entrepreneurial Development (SLED) programme;
– Hinterland Employment and Youth Service (HEYS) and, now, the Guyana Youth Corps (GYC).
The Guyana Youth Corps aims at ensuring that young people can be equipped with the knowledge, skills and attitudes to become productive citizens and at providing for themselves and their families while enhancing national and community development.
Young people, therefore, can rest assured that the Government will continue to work towards empowering them for leadership. We aim at creating a cadre of youth leaders in every region, committed to developing that region and including providing jobs.
Your Government remains resolute in encouraging promoting youth entrepreneurship. We see this as critical to eliminating inequality and reducing unemployment. The responsibility devolves on young people to accept the training opportunities available, develop their leadership skills and to utilise these skills for the development of themselves, their families, their communities and their country.
Guyana’s destiny is in the hands of its young people. The state is lending a helping hand but young people’s hands must seize the opportunities being provided.
Young people must not be afraid to lead. They have an invaluable contribution to make to society, particularly within their neighbourhoods, villages and regions. They possess the exuberance, enthusiasm and energy to make a positive contribution to national development.
I therefore urge you to empower yourselves to lead.

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