It is regrettable when a group of young people attempt a venture that they believe will further their interests and the responsible government ministry, having been invited and expected, fails to show up. Thus, if the sequence of events detailed by Mr. Mark Ross (`No Ministry of Youth representative at the consultation for the formation of a National Youth Council:’ SN: 20/06/13) is correct, the default on the part of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports is palpable.
From as long as I can remember, politicians and their like have spared no opportunity to regale us about the virtues of youth and the importance of properly nurturing the young. Yet, notwithstanding all the fine words, in almost every part of the world young people are in jeopardy. So much so that, as I write, the Pope is attending the World Youth Day celebrations in Brazil and again has been commenting on this crisis and calling on young people to eschew materialism and adopt traditional values.
I made this deviation from my discourse on local government not to censure but because Mr. Ross made two points that I feel need correcting because they are directly related to me and because my comments can provide some information which may be of use to him and his colleagues.
Firstly, the consultations and the projected outcomes were not, as Mr. Ross and his colleagues have suggested, a “first.” A Guyana Youth Council with local affiliates existed until the early 1970s but fell into disuse, as did the Guyana Assembly of Youth, which took its place.
Mr. Ross also claimed that the PPP/C government disbanded the National Service and promised to replace it with a national youth policy. I am not certain that this exchange would have made much sense but what the PPP/C manifesto did say was that: “The PPP-CIVIC’s Government will establish a broad-based and democratically constituted National Youth Council which will immediately make recommendations to solve the many problems of our young people and lead them into meaningful and productive avenues. A Services Secretariat will be encouraged, and will be given every assistance to promote training for youth leaders.”
The PPP/C government came to office in October 1992 and I was appointed Senior Minister of Labour, Human Services and Social Security (Housing was added in early in 1993), with Ms. Indra Chandarpal as a minister within the ministry, with a department responsible for youth affairs.
In January 1993, the ministry, with the support of the Commonwealth Youth Programme, contracted a sociologist Mr. Berkley Stewart, then Head of the Department of Sociology at the University of Guyana, to make a study and carry out consultations with a view to formulating a National Youth Policy, and Mr. Stewart sought to be as comprehensive as possible.
He argued that “I therefore contend that in the formulation of a National Youth policy, full consideration must be given to the social situation of our young people in Guyana. We must study the existing family organisation, the education system, our health services, youth employment, etc. in order to create measures designed to combat the problems of our youth stemming from the social conditions in our society.”
Between 29th and 31st January 1993, the ministry held a national youth consultation, which was attended by seventy-eight young people from a broad range of groups. At this consultation, six workshops were formed to deal with what were thought to be the six major issues relating to young people in Guyana: education; recreation; unemployment; health care; the creation of a National Youth council and establishing national youth awards.
A task force comprising one representative from each of the four major political parties, which at the time were the PPP, PNC, United Force and the Working People’s Alliance, and one representative from each region was established to meet with the consultant on March 11th and 12th to attempt to develop a framework for the policy document. A second task force meeting was held April 19th to 21st 1993, at which after a comparative discussion which focused on youth policies in other jurisdictions, reviewed the recommendations coming from the first meeting and formulated the National Youth Policy Framework.
The suggested framework consisted of some nine sections dealing with what should be contained in the national youth policy and how it should operate. Among others, it recommended the formation of a ministry to deal specifically with youth development; the establishment of a national youth commission as an advisory body to the ministry responsible for youth and the establishment of youth employment, service and awards schemes. Conditions have certainly changed, but Mr. Stewart’s 1993 work, “National Youth Policy for Guyana,” could still prove useful.
An outcome of the consultations was the establishment of an Interim National Youth Council with its headquarters in Brickdam, Georgetown, until proper procedures could be established to put a properly elected national youth council in place, and several training programmes were conducted at the headquarters.
In 1995, the “Government of Guyana Youth Policy,” which prioritized five areas: reorganising the youth department, establishing a youth commission and employment, award and service schemes was laid in parliament.
By the end of 1995, a National Youth Commission was in place and after nearly two years of bureaucratic meanderings a National Youth Award was added to the list of our national awards. An attempt to devise youth employment and service schemes had also begun. Consensus on precisely how to elect an acceptable national youth council was not reached by the 1997 elections, after which the Ministry of Youth, Culture and Sports was created.
The sanitised manner in which I have outlined the above developments must not for one moment encourage the belief that sustainably institutionalising these kinds of participatory processes, particularly in our divided political environment, is smooth sailing. Almost from the inception, the ministry was repeatedly accused by some of attempting to bias the entire arrangement in favour of the PPP/C or of seeking to establish a funded PNC enclave with the state. When this was added to the general propensity of young people for quarrel, controversy became the order of the day and this may very well serve to explain why today Mr. Ross and his colleagues are attempting to restart the process.
