Officials urged to create enabling environment for Region 10 youths

Officials were urged to create an enabling environment for youths across Region 10 (Upper Demerara- Berbice) during a consultation on Wednesday which shed light on numerous issues affecting youths across the region.
The consultation with youths and residents was hosted by the Ministry of the Presidency’s Department of Youth, Culture and Sport, and was attended by Director of Youth, Melissa Carmichael, and other representatives, including Alicia Pompey Rosine and trainer/mentor of the Youth Innovation Project, Diane Pompey.
Carmichael, who listened to the concerns, noted that her department’s mandate is going to every region to ensure that programmes are reaching and impacting

young people, as well as to ascertain their needs.
She added that the consultation also aimed at incorporating necessary ideas as the department hosts National Youth Week from May 20 to 27.
“We want to ensure that what we’re doing for National Youth Week is not only what we want to do, but rather what is necessary, what is needed by the young people whom we’re representing”, Carmichael said.
As such, she opened the floor for youths to list their needs, and shared their concerns before she told them about the programmes that are being offered by the department.
Regional Chairman Renis Morian, in his address to the gathering at the Bayroc Community Centre Ground, shared numerous concerns about the youths of the region and pleaded for assistance in creating an enabling environment.
Morian said that there is a well-funded and organised negative cultural system in the region, which acts against the success of its young people.
He said most are distracted young people who come from the background of little or no parental support. “They are most distracted by social issues of their homes. The young people are looking for love, identity, and they’re looking for someone that will embrace them without using them, and (help) them to find the way forward.
“The system is motivated by 3 things: music, sex and alcohol…,” the Regional Chairman noted, while adding that a counter balancing environment, which is necessary, does not exist in the region.
He urged leaders to stop making it “superficial,” and address the situation on the ground by creating an enabling environment for youths.
Additionally, the Regional Chairman made calls for “concrete steps” to be taken in an effort to assist youths. “We got to hit this ‘head on’…Region 10 don’t have the environment, and when these young people leave school, there is no place that they can go and further develop themselves… Groups that are trying, the resources are thin to non- existent, they need resources…,” Morian stressed.
Youths who were present were advised on upcoming initiatives, including the Guyana Youth Business Summit, where young people will have an opportunity to attend and earn the chance to win $1 million to fund a business.
They were encouraged to submit proposals and models to receive the chance to receive funding to build on the idea submitted.