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Nevis youth given the opportunity to shape youth policy |
CHARLESTOWN NEVIS (November 03, 2006) -- Young people on Nevis will have the opportunity to shape the Nevis Island Administration's (NIA) policy on youth for 2007 when they meet at an upcoming youth consultation on Saturday November 18, 2006 at the Eden Brown Church of God Conference Hall.
This was disclosed by the Honourable Hensley Daniel, Minister with responsibility for youth in the Nevis Island Administration during a recent interview with the Government information Service.
The forum would afford youth ranging from 15-35 the opportunity for young people to interact, to discuss their views on other issues, suggest alternatives and point the way forward.
Mr Daniel explained that the Nevis Reformation Party- led Administration would embark on the initiative in a bid to keep a campaign promise to have the youth forum early in its administration.
~~Adz:Right~~"We (NIA) are saying to the young people, come on out and engage with each other because at the end, we want the ideas and suggestions that we will put in our policy document to have emerged from among the ranks of the young people. So there is a session where the young people will be asked to identify the challenges faced by young people and also identify the way forward, how to address these challenges&
"We don't know what the challenges will be but we have invited a wide cross section of young people from the Sixth Form, the Fifth Forms from the schools, the community organisations and we are saying to them grab hold of this opportunity," he said and added, "we made a commitment to have this youth forum very early in our administration and that is exactly what we are doing."
Meantime, Mr Daniel noted that the Ministry of Youth was critical to the new Administration and therefore decided to put youth at the center of development and as such would ensure that young people participated and engaged in all aspects of development on Nevis.
~~Adz:Left~~In that regard, Mr Daniel noted that the Administration had placed a number of young people on every state board in Nevis to demonstrate in a tangible manner that "we are working assiduously on the development of young people. So that's one of the first things we have done," he said.
Also, the Youth Minister said, that the NIA had so far provided assistance to over 60 young people to pursue training overseas, 75 percent of which were young people
"That is the way we intend to continue to empower young people," he said and added that the Ministry was in the process of setting up youth enterprise schemes so that young people on Nevis would have the chance to develop their own businesses.
