Opposition Leader David Granger says Guyana should resolve to make this the ‘Year for Youth’ as its future lies inescapably in the hands of its young people and as such the best preparations should be put in place to foster their success.
“Young people today constitute seventy per cent of our prison population. They are the majority of our poor and unemployed. They are our street children and child labourers who are being robbed of a bright future. They deserve better,” Granger said in his New Year’s message.
He further noted that this year must be one in which young people can look forward to a good life, where fewer of them become victims of crime or are forced to grow up hungry, poor, on the streets or in jail.
Instead, Guyana’s ‘Year for Youth’ must be one in which its young people can be educated in well-equipped and well-staffed schools; in which the number of dropouts at both the primary and secondary levels are reduced; in which graduates can expect to be employed and the high rate of migration of educated graduates is lowered.
According to the Opposition Leader, the year must be the beginning of an era in which education; employment and empowerment of young people are enhanced. These needs must be embodied in a new National Youth Policy that is central to the development of the nation as Guyana’s looks forward to “a good life for all.”
