 Greetings, everyone. Welcome to today's launch, supporting youth development, professionalizing youth workers in the Bahamas. This is a project that is being sponsored by the Commonwealth of Learning. And as you'll see at the top, there are several other logos there, Bahamas Technical and Vocational Institute, the Ministry of Education in Bahamas and Lakehead University. We'll be having speakers from all of these agencies participating in today's session. My name is Dr. Kirk Parris, and I am the advisor education at the Commonwealth of Learning. And I'll be co-facilitating today's session with my colleague Dr. Moret Newman, also identified there. And the chair of today's session is Dr. Robert Robertson, the president of Bahamas Technical and Vocational Institute. Today's session will run for about one hour, and it will be recorded. And we will make the session available up on Cole's YouTube channel at the end of today's session. Once we edit to the video and it'll be available again on Cole's YouTube channel. We'll be sharing this information and some other information in the chat. And on that note, we'd like to encourage you to offer any comments in the chat. And if you have any particular questions for the panelists to please post those in the Q&A. We'll be working behind the scenes on those and find time during today's presentations to address some of these questions. So today's program, as you can see here, we got five sections that will start with a welcome, some opening remarks, context of youth work and youth work project, discussion, and closing. This is the program that you may have seen circulated on email and social media. And it captures the context of today's event, which of course is the idea of supporting youth workers in a project that is again being sponsored by the Commonwealth of Learning in partnership with Bahamas Technical and Vocational Institute and other supporting partners including the Ministry of Education, and of course, Lakehead University in Canada. So just pausing, we are waiting for Minister Jeffrey Lloyd to join us, the Minister of Education. He just ended a session in Parliament actually is taking a break according to Dr. Robertson, and we'll be joining us shortly. As we wait for Minister Lloyd to arrive. I'm going to invite Dr. Robert Robertson to offer some. Yes, thank you. The Minister is just arriving. So, as we wait more participants are joining those that might have just joined welcome to today's session on supporting youth development professionalizing youth workers in the Bahamas. Yeah, I'm just on a project launch. So if you wait about an hour that'd be better. And for those that are just arriving we are waiting for Minister, Minister of Education, Mr. Jeffrey Lloyd to join us. And you can see the program that we have here with the welcome. So, Dr. Robert Robertson will present a welcome remark on a moment, and then we'll pivot to opening remarks from Minister Lloyd, and Dr. Venkatararaman biology at the Commonwealth of Learning. Dr. Robertson. Yes, sorry, I'll invite. Yes. Yes, I understand you're you had a call. I'll invite you to offer some opening remarks. I had a call from the PS for the Minister so she was giving me an update on him being available shortly so apologies. So I'm pleased to be able to introduce the session briefly and more importantly welcome participants to this kick off this launch. Obviously very appreciative of the opportunity at the Bahamas technical and vocational Institute to be working with such a well reputed global, you know, learning Institute such as the Commonwealth of Learning. So I do want to thank them very much. And I'll turn to Mr. Miss. If I didn't acknowledge the presence of our board chairman Mr Kevin Bayes then who was on the call today as well and the support of the, of the board of directors at BTV I minister Lloyd will be joining us in a minute I mentioned to the panelists that the budget was apparently presented in the house today. agreed to race back to his office and join us in just a few minutes. But if I can just say a few things briefly by way of introduction. BTBI has approximately 6,000 students that we serve on an annual basis. And we do that using a variety of different modalities. In particular, we've been very appreciative and fortunate to be able to work with COL and Dr. Newman in particular in increasing our ability to provide online education. That initiative started about a year or so ago, which is just as we got into COVID-19 obviously. Now we had been in online learning previously and so we did have a bit of a head start. And so we were fortunate to be able to use some of the work with COL to provide us with an opportunity to expand our online training across the width and breadth of the entire Bahamas. The minister who I see has joined us is very passionate about ensuring that all parts of the Bahamas are served by BTBI and I think we've been able to do that pretty well because of the work with COL in particular. Also, I would be remiss if I didn't thank Ms. Yasmine Chong from the Canadian embassy in Kingston, Jamaica who is with us and she is a Rotarian. I had the fortune to, the good fortune to be able to listen to a speech of hers a few weeks ago at a rotary club meeting. And I have to say serendipity is a very good thing. The timing of her presentation was obviously very helpful in terms of what we're doing today, but the information that she has about youth initiatives in Jamaica, but also in other parts of the Caribbean, I think will be very helpful for all of you to hear. She has a lot of very good information and I'm excited that she's joining us. And obviously Gary Plume who has done some similar work with COL in the Pacific. So we at BTBI were basically focusing on career relevant training. And so as I mentioned, we use different modalities. And so one of the key things is that we have in the Bahamas as we see in other parts of the world a large number of youth who are at risk. And I think if you follow any of the recent research and literature, you see that one of the major themes across the world is that we have an aging population. And of course youth in that respect, youth of today are the future of tomorrow. And so one of the things we're trying to get out of this is some training programs that we can offer to Bahamians and to others in the Caribbean that will assist them in ensuring that those youth that we have are positioned properly to take advantage of many of the things that are available to them, provided that they have the appropriate skills. And we wanna ensure that our trainers of the youth are able to provide that level of training. So with that, I won't take any more time. I see the minister is with us. And I know he has an extremely busy schedule and minister welcome. Thank you very much for joining us on short notice with everything happening in the house. We really appreciate your attendance, sir. And I'll pass it over to you. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. And it's really an honor and a privilege that we're joining this afternoon. Thanks a lot to our panelists. And really appreciate the Commonwealth of Learning who has been and is an extraordinarily beneficial partner for us here in the Bahamas. And for you at the Bahamas Technical and Vocational Institute, I just wanted to begin firstly by indicating to our panelists and our audience that I've been trained as a teacher to teach the high flyers. I entered the teaching profession back in 1974 and started my career at my former high school, where, which was at the day when I went there, a boarding school, a college preparatory program. But late in 1996, I was tapped on the shoulder by the late Archbishop Lawrence Burke of Catholic Archdiocese and now, sir, and asked if I would head a program for at-risk youth. And I told him no, because I had no training in at-risk youth. And I am listening to Dr. Robertson talking about the kinds of necessity interventions that our young people need. And it was exactly the terminology that was used, Mr. Parris, by the Archbishop in those days, how important it is for us to make an intervention in the lives of young people, particularly young men who are moving astray. And I established in the fall of 1997, the country's first residential program for at-risk young men between the ages of 16 and 19. That eventually expanded to include young men between 12 and 19 and went on for 13 years before it eventually was disbanded in 2009. So I am very familiar and intimately involved and very passionate as Dr. Robertson indicated about rescuing our young people, particularly those who are at risk. And I congratulate the work that Dr. Robertson and his team doing at the Bahamas Technical Vocational Institute, and he and his target audience essentially are just those young people who we can deem at risk or a disadvantage by a host of circumstances in their lives. It really brings me great pleasure to greet you on this occasion, which promotes the advancement of society's greatest investment. And that is our young people as the world now sees that one of the largest populations of young people probably in its recorded history, we have about 1.8 billion young men and women. And that really means that we have about 1.8 billion chances to infuse them with the wisdom and the skills that they need to develop a generation representative of innovation and prosperity and whose impact will reach generations unborn. I remember the late former secretary general of the United Nations, the late Kofi Anan, and he said once, quote, young people should be at the forefront of global change and innovation. Empowered they can be key agents for development and peace. If however they are left on society's margins, all of us will be impoverished. Society that cuts off from its youth, severs its lifeline. And quote, I thought that was quite propitious for this occasion. It is for this reason that youth leaders throughout the Commonwealth must realize the gravity of their positions as facilitators of a future either of failure or success. And properly educating and training today's youth can undoubtedly lead to a demographic dividend. And this, as we know, is the economic growth that occurs when a population shifts from a majority of dependents to a more working age group of citizens. My fellow leaders as sound youth training is vital, so is the sound training of youth leaders who have a direct influence on the growth and development of our young people. The Bahamas, our government places major emphasis on the expansion of youth organizations and youth development programs. And this is evident in its partnership with multiple community, academic, musical, faith-based youth organizations throughout our country. Some of these include the Youth Empowerment Program, the Governor General's Youth Award, Simpson C. Penn's Boys Mentoring Program, and the Young Marine Explorers, just to name a few. Such programs, if led by competent and skilled facilitators can help our young people realize their full potential. As our government views, the training of youth leaders is one of its top priorities. Each year, the Ministry of Youth Sports and Culture conducts what is known as the Youth Leaders Certification Program. It is designed to train and expose, unsharpen the skills of present youth leaders in techniques and methods, provide training and leadership skills, assist youth leaders and youth workers in developing competencies necessary to effectively manage young people and to formulate basic concepts regarding the role of a youth organization. My dear colleagues, qualified youth leaders are needed now more than ever. As my country wrestles with a surge of increased social ills among our young people, especially during the economic sting accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, it graves in me this afternoon to observe the prevalence of gang violence, for instance, which has ravaged the lives of so many of our young people. Just last week, for instance, in the Bahamas, we lost a teenage male on one of our high school campuses as a result of a vicious stabbing incident. During that same incident, another young man sustained critical injuries, but by the grace of God, he's recovering. Recently, we have also observed an uptick in mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse, physical and cyberbullying, and peer pressure among our young people. I'm certain that these circumstances are not unique to the Bahamas, but rather plague nations around the globe. And it's against this backdrop that the Ministry of Education continues to intensify its efforts to provide quality education from the earliest years of human life, all the way to tertiary levels. In the Bahamas, we have free tuition all the way through each of those various sectors. We realize that there is no easy or quick fix for the social ills that plague our young people, but we also are cognizant that there is an absolute fix over time as we create opportunities to assist our young people to navigate the intricacies of their lives. We know that education, skills training, that which is being done at the Bahamas Technical Vocational Institute and other institutions around the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, that education and skills training creates jobs and jobs create wealth. Statistics show us that the absence of any part of this equation leads to poverty and it results in crime. I'm grateful for this initiative led by the Commonwealth of Learning, which has partnered with Lakehead University in Canada and the University of South Pacific to develop micro-courses to enhance the delivery and capacity of youth workers, ensuring that they understand youth and are able to develop strategies to support youth in their growth as contributing citizens. I'm proud to also say that I visited the University of South Pacific when I made a trip to Fiji in 2018. It was very touched by that experience. I want to again this afternoon command Dr. Robinson and his team at the Bahamas Technical Vocational Institute. I am very proud of the work that Dr. Bob, I call him affectionately, has done and is doing. Under his leadership, we have seen stratospheric growth in the enrollment in the BTVI. We have seen certification apply to our students, go from in the 20s when Dr. Bob arrived to now almost 100%. That means that virtually every student who completes a course at the Bahamas Technical Vocational Institute not only receives a certificate signifying that completion but also is certified by industries and not only industries here at the Bahamas and regulatory agencies in the Bahamas but also across the globe. He has done a phenomenal work and I am very, very proud of that. I want to stress again this afternoon colleagues and I cannot stress it enough, the importance of equipping our youth leaders to inspire a strong generation, a generation of hope, a generation of financial, mental, social wealth, a generation of competent citizens, problem solvers, compassionate beings who work in unison for the betterment of all. It is my hope that at the conclusion of this consultation we will generate a clear roadmap on the journey to equipping our youth leaders. I thank you, I congratulate you and all the best this afternoon. Thank you, Minister Lloyd. My name is Dr. Kirk Parris and I am one of the co-organizers for the Youth Work Initiative. Your remarks very much touched a point and it was very illuminating to hear the context of the Bahamas and also to know that you've had some connections to the University of the South Pacific. I'd like to now just pivot to Commonwealth of Learning's Vice President, Dr. Venkataraman Balaji to offer some opening remarks. Dr. Balaji, over to you. Thank you, Kirk. Honorable Minister Lloyd, a fellow panelist. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's an honor for me to be present on this occasion of the project launch this evening and to be present in the company of the honorable minister, Commonwealth of Learning and the Bahamas have maintained an outstanding relationship over the years and one of the biggest opportunities for me to learn firsthand how the ministry works was during the chogam. I'm not chogam, the CCEM, the Commonwealth Education Minister's meeting hosted by the Bahamas back in 2015, almost exactly six years back in June, 2015. And that showed the kind of sophistication that the ministry has when it comes to putting together a major international event. Without offending anyone, I would like to think that this was the best CCEM of the decade. I mean, I know Minister Lloyd has personally visited Fiji and joined the CCEM there in 2018 as well, but I do consider the Bahamas one was the most outstanding one of the decade. And we have also worked very closely with the ministry on many, many occasions. Under Minister Lloyd's leadership, Bahamas proved its capacity for self-resilience in education during the way they handled the aftermath of cyclone, not Dorian. And we have played a very minor supportive role, but the fact is that the leadership under leadership of Minister Lloyd has been most impressive in the entire region. In fact, we are learning some of the lessons and moving them to other countries. We also want to thank the minister for encouraging us through his participation. Back in 2019, we held a workshop for women leaders in the academia, which he inaugurated. And at that point, he also shared with us his vision, some of which is reflected in his speech today, which was not just eloquent, it was full of, it was designed to kindle hope. I mean, because hope is what is missing most in today's world. I mean, people have not been to schools or classes for almost 14 months in most countries and that has had a series of resulting stresses. And the minister was quite right in saying that all of our efforts must focus on rekindling the hope, especially among the youth. And we are talking of the event launch which will train youth workers who are also frontline workers, especially in the context of the new and ongoing problems that many societies are facing with reference to youth, especially in the Caribbean and the Pacific. And this is not only to professionalize them, it's also to make the point that youth do have an obligation to teach the older people because traditionally as a distance learning organization, Commonwealth of Learning did not have youth as a primary constituency for many years until about six years back. Again, I go back to the CCM hosted in the Bahamas where Commonwealth of Learning in the presence of the then minister signed an agreement, tripartite agreement with the University of West Indies and with the Commonwealth secretariat to launch the core of what is today, the youth work program, professionalizing the youth work program. And as the minister would notice, since then it has blossomed into a much bigger program. It has moved to Pacific and from Pacific it is moving back into Bahamas where it all started. So I'm very, very happy to be part of this journey which is kind of a helical journey. It started out from Bahamas, gone to Pacific, comes back to Bahamas, but at a higher plane. And we look forward to the great opportunity when we will train youth frontline workers who would intend bring benefits to over 140,000 people, the young people in Bahamas. As you all know, Commonwealth is largely a collection of nations that are young. And which is why I keep saying that even for distance learning, which traditionally did not address youth as a primary constituency. Youth have imaged as a very, very important constituency for the reason that they need to be skilled. They need to be provided with opportunities as the minister very beautifully put it. They must be enabled to work with the equation that leads to where education equates to skills, equates to jobs, equates to prosperity. And that equation, this is a very, very important beginning. And we want to thank once again the minister for being present and for launching it. Which shows the priority assigned by the ministry to this entire program. I also want to thank Martha Semer, our focal point, calls focal point, who functions under the direction of the minister. And her role in this entire endeavor has been very, very important. We cannot thank her enough. And my colleagues will do more, but I do want to add my own words of thanks to her for her participation and for her advice and guidance. I also want to thank Professor Robert Robertson for his presence here and for supporting this entire collaboration between BTVI and the Commonwealth of Learning. And this, you know, the partnership led through VASC in the virtual industry for the small states of Commonwealth here in Cal has been a very, very impressive one. It's a long journey and we are beneficiaries too. That's what I wanted to emphasize. And I want to thank Madam Yasmin Chung for her presence here. And, you know, in a sense, she represents both Canada and this very powerful resource called a network called Rotary International. And we want to thank her for her presence here and for her participation. I also want to recognize the work of Dr. Gary Plain who did a very impressive piece of work on professionalizing youth work in the Pacific, which enabled us to bring him onto the Bahamas as well. He's also the winner of a very prestigious grant in Canada from the Social Science and Higher Education Research Council. It's a very, very, very prestigious grant. And I'm glad he, as a very sort of a well-known and renowned professional, is part of this very, very important project and the initiative. I want to thank my own colleagues, Dr. Merritt Newman and Dr. Kirk Perris for asking me to be part of this event. And I want to conclude this by thanking the minister and all of you on behalf of the President of Commonwealth of Learning. For all the support and guidance that you've been giving and the primacy and priority that you have assigned to this initiative. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Baljean. Yes, thank you, Dr. Baljean. Again, to Minister Lloyd for both of your opening remarks. I'd ask Kishan, if you can just pivot back to the PowerPoint deck and I'll offer just a bit of context to the Youth Work Project. And then I will invite Ms. Yasmin Chong and Dr. Gary Plume to speak to the context of the Youth Work and of course the Youth Work Project. Just a little bit of background of what this could look like in the Bahamas. What you're seeing here is a collection of Youth Work courses that were led by Dr. Gary Plume from his work in the Pacific with our partner in the University of the South Pacific. We've been offering a series of micro courses as Minister Lloyd alluded to over these topics. You can see it's everything from engaging Pacific youth in their communities to youth entrepreneurship. These five courses have or are being offered. The fifth on youth entrepreneurship as you see was just offered just a week back Monday, May 17th. And we have a six final, the final six and the six of the six courses the final course will be offered in June. Good Governance and Youth Organizations. We're going to be sharing these courses in this Youth Work Project as exemplars of the kinds of micro courses that could be offered in the Bahamas. We will of course be looking to co-design these courses with our partners in BTVI and the Ministry and other contributing partners which I'll mention in a moment to again unpack these courses, mix them up and put them back together to contextualize them for the youth workers in the Bahamas. We might not necessarily align to these specific topic areas but these again will be, you could say exemplars of courses that have been very successful. We've an aggregate to date, we've had over 2,000 people in the U.S. in the Fujian and the South Pacific context enrolling in these courses. So these are the kinds of ideas, knowledge experience that we're going to be bringing to BTVI to engage in this activity. Next slide please. On that point, we need to hear from people in the Bahamas. We need to understand the issues that Minister Lloyd spoke to and perhaps other issues that are very much prominent within the Bahamas. We have a survey there and we're going to post it in the chat where we're inviting stakeholders within the region to offer inputs on issues facing youth in the Bahamas. You'll see the link that's just been posted there. We'll post it again and with everyone's emails we'll be circulating this survey again to invite inputs on issues facing the youth in the Bahamas that will serve as a foundation for us to start these workshops which is central to the activity that we'll be doing with BTVI and the Ministry of Education. On that point, I think it's important that we hear from youth experts and before I do excuse me, I should also say, I forgot the slide, that the project is also being sponsored by in addition to the Ministry of Education, BTVI. Of course, Commonwealth of Learning is the main sponsor. Lakehead University, you'll hear from Dr. Plum in a moment. And as Dr. Balaji alluded to, we are also thankful to the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada for providing a grant to help fund this activity. I should also be remiss if I also did not mention Mount Pleasant Green Baptist Church as a central organization within the Bahamas that engages with youth directly who are also part of the steering committee along with these other partners that are identified here on this page. I will now pivot to Ms. Yasmin Chong, the Senior Business Development Officer at the Canadian High Commission, Jamaica to offer some remarks on the context of youth work. Ms. Chong, over to you. Thank you so much. And good afternoon, everyone. Minister Lloyd, thank you so much for having everyone here at this end for those words that you gave, which are very, very important as we all in different groups try to develop our youth to take the lead in the next millennium. Okay, next slide, please. So I'm gonna talk a little bit today about youth development in world tree. We have a very active youth program in world tree and like every organization that service-oriented, we pay particular attention to what our youth are saying, what our youth are doing and what our youth are aspiring to do. Next slide, please. So when we talk about world tree youth, we're talking about leaders in the community, thinkers, innovators, creatives, artists, educators, developers, and as I like to put it, and everything to everybody anywhere. But specific to world tree, who are they? Who are our youth there? We're talking about Rotarians. And I know some of you might be surprised because we see Rotarians as the older and experienced heads, but we do have Rotarians. Rotar actors, our youth exchange are interactors and as early as our tiny babies in whom we call early actors. We also have Rotary Community Corps, which are really just youth members from various communities in the countries that we serve. And then we have the all-encompassing youth, which I like to refer to as our youth at risk, a very important segment of our youth portfolio. Next slide, please. So I like this quote from Pearlbuck. She said, the young do not know enough to be prudent and therefore they attempt the impossible and they achieve it, generation after generation. Next slide, please. So today we're gonna just very quickly look at the global landscape for youth development, certainly in Rotary, which I think is very instructive for youth programs such as this one that is being developed for the Bahamas. Learn how other districts and clubs globally are creative, innovative and inclusive youth programs. We're gonna develop some actionable ideas that can be incorporated in youth development programs, not only in Rotary, but in other youth groups. And finally, we're just gonna take a quick look at some of the things that we're doing in district 70, 20. Next slide. So this is a very interesting slide that I have here. In 2019, 2020 Rotary year, we set about looking at our youth programs and particularly our youth leadership programs just to find out from our youth, what exactly are they looking for? What do they want to see in leadership programs that then courses that they're exposed to? And let me just clarify here, this survey, the results of this survey that you're looking at came from our Rotary youth across the world. Not only in Latin America, not only in the Americas, not only in the Caribbean, but Europe, Africa, Asia, right across the world. And what is interesting to this slide for me is that some of the things that we saw in a survey that we did in 70, 20 does not vary from what you're seeing here now. Our youths are interested in self-confidence and self-esteem. They're interested in identifying their leadership style and understanding their own personality. They also are interested in ethics, believe it or not, and conflict resolution. Conflict resolution, very important. They're also keenly interested in how they develop professionally. And later on in the slide deck, we will see some of what came out of that. So next slide. So I like this quote, which Minister Lloyd also mentioned, only that I didn't complete it because I wanted to stop at peace. And young people should be at the forefront of global change and innovation. I truly believe in that. And if they're empowered, or when we empower them, they will be the key agents for development and peace. Next slide, please. So what are we doing in Rotary with our young groups? We're restructuring our Rotary youth leadership program. We are understanding better the needs and interests of youth and we are strategically strategizing, sorry, differently to achieve those objectives that need to go. And let me say just here that nothing is more appropriate than when you get exactly what the youth are asking for. And we get the opportunity in engaging with them to really meet them where they are. And that is through social media and other platforms because those platforms allow us to collect feedback directly from our youth. And that is what they are most comfortable with. That is where they are most honest. And we get to learn and speak a new language and that's the language of youth. The language is about technology and innovation. That's what they are speaking. And in speaking that new language, we get to communicate in real time, interactive as ever. You couldn't want it any better. And as has been mentioned earlier, both at the minister and with Dr. Robertson as well as with Dr. Balaji, recognition, they want you to recognize their roles, their rights and their responsibilities. Next slide, please. So let's take a quick look at what aspects of Rotary are doing in the various continents. So if we look to New Zealand, for example, I really love this example. They have what they call a Rylo Oceana. And that is just a group of young people who share certain interests, but in sharing their interests and fellowshiping, they also conduct their service. And one great example that I saw was them. They had a bike ride through some mountains and it was not just a bike ride because they had identified communities along that route. And they were dropping off food packages, engaging with youth on the various stops. And I found that to be very interesting because they not only got to do what they like, but they also got the opportunity to perform service and to also interact and engage with others. If we come back to the Americas, the US and Canada tend to do a lot of similar things. And they're great because they actually segment the age groups in order to get the kind of feedback that you saw earlier. So our younger groups, our interactors, our youth at risk and our road to community core, they go on to leadership training. And it's a camp style. And let me tell you, there is no better feeling than to see these young persons who knew nobody when they got to these camps. And they went away, went back home and our friends to this day. And there are many examples of that. And I'm just pleased that some of our Caribbean youngsters were able to have that experience as well. And if you go to Africa, a lot going on there, these African young people are as good as a Rotarian. They're rotor-actors, they're interactors, but they're doing some amazing and awesome kind of service projects. They're doing some really interesting deep dive kind of leadership development and personal development. So they are a group to watch. We have a lot to learn from them. And then we come back to our own district, District 7020 here in the Caribbean, which includes the Bahamas, Jamaica, Haiti, and I think what seven other islands, we are doing some amazing things as well. And the Herring Road, we believe in development of our next generation of allegiance. And so our programs that we are forever designing and evolving help young leaders in leadership skills, expand education, and learn the value of service. Next slide, please. So here's another quote from a Rotary president, Rotary international president back in 1948 to 49. And I feel that this is just so prophetic because he said that the youth of every generation has stood in critical positions for the skills they have been tipped one way or another by the training they received from their elders. This is particularly true today. Our boys and girls have greater freedom. They exercise greater power and there are more opportunities for both good and evil than ever before. And so it is extremely important, therefore, that youth's great possibilities realized and developed. And that's our mandate. Next slide, please. So what are we doing here in 1720? We are not just restructuring. We are reimagining what youth and youth leadership is and will be, but through your own lens, through the lens of the youth, our interactors, the rotor actors and all our youth groups are members of planning committees in whatever activities or initiatives that we are undertaking. Youth are involved in selecting their professional development projects. And they have exposure to traditional and new career paths because that's what they're interested in. They wanna learn about logistics, animation. They just wanna go deep into these areas. The understanding surface, team building, partnerships, that's what they're interested in. That's what they've told us and that's what they're doing. As role chariots, we are deploying the soft and the hard skills as well as those of our external partners. And this next point is very important to young people. They are quite comfortable with gender. They're quite comfortable with inclusion, diversity, race, culture, trust, trust, risk and managing of people. We have a lot to learn from them. And this last point on this slide is extremely, extremely important, that of citizenship. They have a sense of belonging that is absolutely amazing. They have a sense of identification and they own their roles and their contributions. Next slide, please. So we are also reimagining youth and youth leadership, but we're being very intentional and deliberate in making decisions that affect not only themselves, but everybody else. And we're making sure that this engagement happens in partnerships between youth and adults and that they are so structured that both groups contribute, both groups teach each other and we learn from each other. And we're helping young people to be the agents of their own development. Youth are more passive, are more than just passive recipients of external influences. In fact, and instead, they are actively involved in shaping their development by interacting with people and opportunities made available first within their own environment and next outside of their home borders. So they're truly international citizens of this world. Our youth engagement offers community leaders the expertise and partnership of young people and helping them, helping adults to fully understand what it is like to grow up in a rapidly changing world. Next slide, please. So I say that my fellow Rotarians because as Dr. Roberts said earlier, we have about four candidates here for membership, but my fellow youth activists, let me call us that in closing, I want to leave with you some of the toughest lessons that I and my Rotarians, my fellow Rotarians have learned from just interfacing with our youth. And the first thing is we need to respect the younger generation and their opinions, their opinions matter too. We need to accept that they may not have the same ideas or the same views as we do, but that's okay. And we need to understand that they are the future and they will take the world in their own direction, give advice, do not criticize them. Give advice, remind them though that yesterday's wisdom still applies and they're very appreciative of that. And embrace today and never use the word in my time. Because you know why? Because your time is now just as it is theirs. And as long as you are alive, you are a part of this time and your time. Next slide. I think that's it for me. Thank you so much, Dr. Paris, I hope I did it just quickly as possible. It was just fine. Just fine, Ms. Tong was very good in the pacing. I really appreciate it. I think a really important point was the idea that I think to engage with youth, I think we need it as best as possible, think like youth and really involve them in the co-design of any activities. And I think Rotary really exemplifies that, excuse me. I'm gonna now. If I may, with respect, Dr. Paris. Just may I say thank you to Ms. Chong. And if I may just add that I am a past president of the oldest Rotary Club here in the Bahamas. I served back in the late 90s. During my time, just to give you a little bit of history, during my time, I founded the first interact club here in the Bahamas at high school. I also, as you would remember, Chong the Rotary for many, many, many years was male only. And it was under my presidency that the decision was brought whether we should include women. And my club, the oldest club started in 1964 was split down the middle and it was left to me to cast the deciding vote. And I voted in favor of admitting females. So I just wanted to share that with you. And I've been twice honored by my club with a Paul Harris fellow. So I'm still very much a Rotarian at heart. I'm really grateful for the work that you're doing and the insights that you provided. I think that's very, very insightful. And thank you, Minister Lloyd, for the opportunity to serve as a ward. Wonderful. Thank you for that added context, Minister Lloyd. And again, to Miss Chong for her remarks. I wanna now invite Dr. Gary Plume is really the architect of the youth work project that we've done in the Pacific and will be one of the leads in the youth work project that we're going to be delivering in the Bahamas. Gary, over to you. Yes, so thank you very much, Miss Chong for those inspiring remarks and also for your thoughtful inputs, Minister Lloyd and to Vice President Ballagy. My name is Gary Plume and I'm an assistant professor at Lakehead University North of Toronto in Canada. I've been part of many youth groups in Canada and in the Caribbean over the past 20 years. And I now devote much of my time to research of and with youth in intercultural contexts. I'm gonna speak about our upcoming project that seeks to professionalize youth work in countries of the Commonwealth for which Lakehead is a partner with the Commonwealth of Learning and with BTVI. Now, my colleagues have done a wonderful job of illustrating the context of youth in the Commonwealth, particularly in the Caribbean, but also around the world. We know that 70% of the world are youth, about 2 billion youth worldwide between 18 and 25 years old. 90% of youth live in low and lower income countries and one third of youth are in Commonwealth countries. So clearly youth work is a pressing issue around the world. One quote that really resonates with me is the following, that the hopes of building a world that is more prosperous, equitable, inclusive and peaceful, rest on the shoulders of young people not least because of their sheer numbers. Well, this in itself is quite a burden for youth. But in the world that we live in, the impacts are faced first by those who are young. When we look at the issues that arise around the world, we can see that young people are rising to these challenges. In the United States, for example, the majority of the thousands of protesters for the Black Lives Matter movement were youth. In Germany earlier this week, for example, nine youth climate activists convinced the constitutional court to overturn the federal government's climate legislation saying that there was too much burden placed on future generations. Youth unemployment is one of the most pressing issues confronting the world today and the Bahamas is no exception to that. Minister Lloyd pointed out earlier that when youth face unemployment, there are related issues of health, crime and further education. And it's not just that youth have employment, but that they have meaningful, fulfilling livelihoods that contribute to their communities, to their nations and to society. And the impact on youth of exponentially increasing virtual, the exponentially increasing virtual environment that there's critical digital literacy. We think of social media, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, WhatsApp, these are not just benevolent platforms to help youth connect and exchange ideas and to learn, but that these are corporations with sophisticated algorithms to recruit massive amounts of valuable data. So these are all issues that implicate youth. These are global issues, but global issues are youth issues because they affect youth more than the rest of us. So some questions that we should ask ourselves as we talk about developing programs for youth work. What supports and interventions can be provided for youth, for their goals and in their development to navigate some of these complex world and global issues? In what areas should youth be supported? This is the context of youth work. How might a national field of youth work provide a foundation for youth and the issues that affect youth? Some of the things that we might consider in a robust youth work sector. First would be a definition. We might consider youth work policy as well. So in other small island nations of the Commonwealth, for example, youth work legislation and policies paved the way for greater investment in youth work, both for training and in practice. In the Bahamas, the leadership of the ministry of youth and sport will be crucial for policy legislations and for oversight. Also coordination between youth agencies. There, we can think of all sorts of agencies that are involved in the different aspects of youth work, government agencies, youth initiatives, NGOs, community service organizations, schools, churches, health agencies, youth led organizations, social media. There's a great many across the Bahamas and we heard of some in these presentations as well. So Rila, for example, as my colleague Ms. Chong spoke about the young Marines youth empowerment program, the fresh start program for employment skills and training in the Bahamas, the ministry of youth leaders certificate programs, the self starters program, the empower young Bahamian citizens to establish or expand small businesses, the jumpstart program that focuses on youth at risk or the over the hill program, which is targeted investments in social intervention to improve the lives, productivity and safety of youth. These are all great programs that are happening across the Bahamas, but we can talk about the sector and the degree to which there's coordination between these programs that really look for synergies and developing of the sector as a whole. And then finally, education and training for youth workers. This is a critical aspect of the youth work sector and this is what we hope to do through this partnership. So through the months of June and July, when we talk about the ways that we can support youth, we'll be asking ourselves some very important questions. So for example, should we be focusing on global youth issues? Should we be taking a universal approach to youth work or does the work necessarily need to focus on the particular circumstances of youth in the Bahamas? On one hand, youth work is relatable for everyone because we all were or are youth at some point in our lives. Some of us still are or think we are youth. Indeed, the quality of youthfulness is strongly associated with youth. This is different than many other targeted groups where some live the experience and others don't. There are other questions as well. So for example, is youth a homogenous group or are youth infinitely different in diverse category? Many experts would say that youth are actually more different from each other than they are similar than they have things in common with each other. We can also think about whether we focus on problems associated with youthhood or whether we focus on youth strengths, particularly through a positive youth development approach. Indeed, unemployment, addictions, crime, mental health, violence, these are real issues within society. But we can also think about the way that the true capacities of young people are underestimated and we can focus on their strengths to develop youth work programming. And then finally, when we ask the question, should youth be seen as recipients of youth work programs or as socially active agents of their own development as Ms. Chong was alluding to earlier? This is harder than it seems, but it's a really important aspect to consider that youth can make sense and understand the world around them and they can act upon it even in the development of these courses that we will talk about. So these are some of the overarching considerations that we will look at as we develop these youth work courses and these are all part of what we talk about as the ethics of youth work. So in the coming weeks, we will have five youth work workshops that will be unfolding. These will be weekly workshops on Tuesday, Tuesdays from June 15th to July 13th and we'll be talking about the ways that youth might be supported through various courses. We'll be constructing topics for courses, competencies, outcomes and curriculums. We'll be working with people who have already had some of these experiences in the field of youth work and with curriculum writers. What we really want is a group of people, gathering a group of people that are in touch with youth issues in the Bahamas and that have reflected on these issues that affect youth today. Now we've done some similar work in the Pacific Island countries. Several nations, Fiji, Vanuatu, Samoa and Tonga and we had a meeting two years ago around this time. We deliberated with a group of youth stakeholders, people from the National Ministry of Youth, from Pacific Youth Conventions, various youth forums, youth groups and so on. And we came up with a series of six week online courses that are available to youth. Dr. Parris showed you these earlier in this launch and they are still going on and happening today. Now as we work through the workshops in the Bahamas, we may come up with some different topics. Some of the ones that came up might be around youth and sustainability, youth employment and livelihoods. This, for example, is the online learning management system for youth in the climate crisis, one of the ones that we developed in the South Pacific. But as we go through these workshops, we'll need to establish an online platform in which the topics will be held in this online platform. We have hundreds of learners in the Pacific modules and we have facilitators in the background that respond to online discussion forums and mark various assignments. So as we go through these workshops that we're hosting in the Bahamas, we'll go through this process with a group of 10 to 20 stakeholders and we'll do a number of things. We'll develop a short list of key topics for youth workers. We'll create the objectives for these courses. We'll decide on the approaches for the learners and then we'll package these all together for a series of online courses that will be relevant for learners in the Bahamas. This will hopefully become a bedrock for individuals to become certified in youth work topics that will be useful in growing the youth work sector in the Bahamas. So thank you for this time to be able to share this vision for the, for our workshops in the upcoming week. And now I will now turn it over to Dr. Maret Newman. We're kind of short on time but one of the questions that I thought we could grapple with a little bit was the fact that I noticed both the honorable minister and Ms. Chong in your presentation, both of you highlighted the importance of youth leaders and the role that youth leaders play and so the question I was really raising here is, how are we going to ensure in this proposed program that we address this component? So I think the answer can come either from Gary who may want to speak perhaps to how leadership is already integrated in the Pacific program but also maybe Ms. Chong, you could draw on some of the experience that you've had with Rotary in Jamaica and maybe minister, you have some of your own. So this question can go to anybody. Any suggestions as to how we ensure that youth leadership is integrated into the program? Well, thank you very much, ma'am. If I may start with your permission kindly. I'd like to go back if you would please permit me to have the presentation by Dr. Pume a moment ago. And I would really, sir, like to get the responses of the young people to those questions that you have posed. I find it very interesting their perspectives, their thoughts about matters that involve their lives. Like to know what do they think of themselves? Are they social active changes, agents of change and so on? I really would. In terms of how do you incorporate? I thought, unless I've been misled, I thought that this was a program to train young people, young leaders, sorry. Is it not, is this not, but a Commonwealth of Learning, is it not a program that will teach young leaders how to facilitate the development of their constituency that is young people? Because what I found in my years of working with young people, they are influenced by, best by persons who are closer to them in their age group, their age. And with whom they can more easily and readily identify. I'll give you an example. I have five daughters, the youngest of which is 21. And I find it very interesting what Ms. Chang said, and that is not to criticize, but to give advice. I think that is very, very, very true and effective. They've seemed to recoil at the, they bristle at criticism. They want your guidance, they respect your guidance, and they don't want you to discount their youthfulness. And they want you to appreciate that they are young, respect them that they are young. They come from a different perspective than we do as an older generation. They respect that. But I also find that they are more willing to listen to young people of their age group who are just a little bit older. There was a group, when I trained to work with young people, I found something called peer counseling that was very, very effective, very effective. Folks who had gone through experiences that some of their younger counterparts were going through and who were able to help them navigate that. They were not too much older than them, maybe say 10 years or so. They found that to be very, very beneficial. Now, training young people as youth leaders, I think it has to be critical. And it is, I don't see any other, that has to be an indispensable component of youth development work, absolutely. If I can just quickly respond to, maybe Maret, do you want to take that? I was going to respond, but I think perhaps this is your... Go ahead, go ahead. To Minister Lewis, I think, yes, I think to not be too agist against all of us on today's call, we certainly recognize that. You could say it's actually inclusive. For example, the courses that we're running in the Pacific right now, the facilitators are youths themselves. So we certainly embrace the youth as central to this activity. And we see them both as, you could say, recipients and purveyors of the work, of the knowledge that is being delivered in the Pacific. And we hope for the Bahama and the Bahamas context as well. So it could go beyond the youth, those people, the youth workers, could go beyond the age of 30, let's say, but we certainly recognize and welcome and invite those under 30 as youth leaders, as you rightly pointed out. Thank you, right? If I could just jump in here as well. I totally agree with the minister. One of the things we found back in 2017, when we were looking at how do we refresh? How do we do the things that young people are interested in? One of the things that came out very strongly from the survey that we did, which to date is our most reliable source of advice from them, is that they stated in no uncertain way that they were only interested if they were going to lead this new program. If their input was not only going to be considered, but was going to be put in place, was going to be implemented. And in 2018, which was our first year in, with this, what we call it at the time, with this experiment, it was absolutely amazing to see them take charge of their own workshop, of their own council for want of a better term. But they also fully appreciated just the very presence of the experienced Rotarians amongst us. And I'll give you a very concrete example, very short story. We announced the RILO for that year throughout the district. And we had it in two places here in Jamaica, in Kingston and in Mandeville, which is at the center of the island. And one day I received a call from a young interactor. So this is an interactor is between the ages of 12 to 17. And she identified herself as the president of her interactor. And that she was interested in bringing her members to the RILO in Kingston. Now, where she is is in a boarding school that's right beside the parish of Manchester, which is where Mandeville is. And so I said, so what is the issue? So she says, well, I spoke to my assistant governor and he told me that I had to bring them to Mandeville. And we're tired of going to Mandeville. We want to meet new people. We want to talk about different things. And we want to just establish lifelong friendships, partnerships, want our club to partner with other clubs in Kingston. And we just want to do something differently. And I said, there's no problem, you can come to Kingston. And her assistant governor called me and said, why did you do that? I said, because that's what they want. That is how we are going to engage them. They're not afraid of telling you what they want. It is up to us as the experienced ones to understand and accept the fact that this is how they thrive. And I am proud to say today, I'm giving a similar presentation a little longer and with a little bit more information on Saturday at Rotary's district conference. And I will have that same young leader at 17 years of age. She's 21 today, graduated from university and still has Rotary in her bones. And she is going to tell you about her journey and what that one conversation that day, what it meant to her, which has been the propeller for her through these last four years. So that's a concrete example, just listen to them, understand what they're saying, you know? Thank you, Yasmin. I'm going to actually now pivot to invite Dr. Robertson to offer the close. Thank you for everyone for being a very captive audience. And I know we went over time, but I think clearly it's indicative, I think of the importance of the issues that we're talking about. Dr. Robertson, over to you to close today's session. Being the youngest one in the session, I guess that's why you asked me to do the close, right? Just a couple of quick words to wrap us up. I do want to just note for the benefit of the participants that we've certainly received the challenge and the opportunities today related to improving our youth at risk framework in the Bahamas. And I do want to just talk briefly, two or three points that I have as takeaways from the session. Certainly we have a very engaged minister of education, Minister Lloyd, I really appreciate your being here throughout this session and sharing your experience. It's obvious you have a long history of experience in terms of working with youth. And I certainly will be calling on you for guidance as we build this program. There's also the incredible experience in the room itself. And so we can follow on the Commonwealth of Learning's model, which basically I think says in terms of this initiative, to think global and act local. And finally, just in terms of thanks, I'd like to thank the vice president from the Commonwealth of Learning who's been so gracious in spending some time with us today. Yasmin Chong from the Canadian Embassy in Kingston, Jamaica. Gary, thank you for your experiences you shared with us from the South Pacific and also to the COL team, Dr. Newman, Dr. Parris for keeping us on track. And finally, again, Minister Lloyd, we really appreciate your input. So I just want to finish on the issue of the survey. We will try to encourage as many people as possible to complete the survey. I think that's really important. We'll get that out and hopefully we'll use the survey as has been directed to bring timely and relevant data to our deliberation. So thanks again to the participants and thanks to COL and thanks to the Ministry of Education. Thank you all. Thank you all very much and all the best. Take care.