Youth Month launched

(ZIZ News) — A call has been made for everyone to play a greater role in shaping a positive environment for young people that can stimulate their personal and professional growth.

Minister of Youth, Honorable Shawn Richards, officially opened youth month with an address on Monday night saluting the nation’s youth.

“The magnitude of our youth population brings with it the realization that the foundation of our nation’s success rests on the shoulders of these young people,” he said. “For that matter, with 50.5 percent of the world’s seven billion people under the age of thirty, we are all charged with ensuring the investment in youth programming is at the forefront of economic and social planning,” he explained.

Minister Richards said Caribbean youth face a variety of challenges, however, he stressed that each challenge represented an opportunity for growth.

He said the manual for that growth is being drafted at the Department of Youth Empowerment as it works to revise and finalize its Federal Youth Policy.

“This document will be the foundation of a strategic plan which will guide the actions, interventions and programmes of both government and civil society in serving our youth, during this month, I ask each and every citizen to pay special attention to the youth of our nation. Let us speak with the youth and not at them; let us remember them in our prayers and supplication as we pray both with them and for them,” the youth minister said.

The theme of this year’s Youth Month is “Preparation for the Future, Investing in Our Youth.”