DEPARTMENT OF YOUTH EMPOWERMENT FACILITATES YOUTH INVOLVEMENT IN THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS

Basseterre, St. Kitts, June 10, 2021 (SKNIS): Director of the Department of Youth Empowerment, Pierre Liburd, said that the department continues to facilitate youth involvement in the decision-making processes of St. Kitts and Nevis as the full participation of youths is important and key to shaping a brighter future for all.

“We have engaged young persons in a number of capacity development training through our regular leadership training tied to our summer camps,” said Mr. Liburd, on the June 09 edition of Working for You. “We have done training for general youth organizations where we host sessions at the Department of Youth Empowerment and across the country where we target youth organizations, unattached young people and take them through practical and theoretical training across a number of different topics.”

Some of the training topics include but are not limited to leadership; conflict resolution; time management; strategic planning and thinking; financial management, and record and bookkeeping.

“These are all important skills and knowledge that they need to have not only to lead successful organizations but to lead successful individual lives and to apply to their career and economic development,” he said.

Mr. Liburd said that opportunities are presented in various ways.

“That has taken many shapes and forms over the years, and we continue to pursue new ways in which we could maintain and even expand that and ensure real-use mainstreaming across all decision-making processes,” said the director.

According to Mr. Liburd, the Department of Youth Empowerment is the lead agency in the government charged with “ensuring the implementation of a Federal Youth Policy which was tabled in Parliament in 2017.”

The Federal Youth Policy is a major transformational paradigm of youth as assets to society and to human growth and development. It will give young people greater access to education, employment, and entrepreneurship opportunities. The policy speaks to health and well-being; youth as agents of democracy; development and nation-building; youth and sustainable development; youth development work and youth mainstreaming, as well as a number of cross-cutting themes and concepts.

It also speaks to the creation of direct action plans by the government; [to nurture] inter-sectoral partnerships and linkages with both public and private institutions; [to empower] the youth population to take responsibility and spark initiative with respect to their future; and to guide, support and nurture the national conscience to always consider the plight of the nation’s young people.
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