 Youth parliamentarians have been given an opportunity to sharpen their skills for the upcoming Youth Parliament set for September 25 and 27 when they were briefed by House Speaker the Honourable Claudius Francis and Senate President Senator Alvina Reynolds. The Youth Parliament has been an annual feature from 1993 and has evolved over the years into debates of actual bills that have been brought to Parliament. House Speaker the Honourable Claudius Francis said he was confident the current cohort of youth parliamentarians will do justice to the debate. Previously they would bring their own motions to be debated and when I became president in 2012 I thought but if we are looking towards the youth why not give them an actual bill that we ourselves would have debated at the higher level. So ever since they have been debating the bill and last year they debated the domestic violence bill which we debated last year as well and coming out of the youth parliament we were of the view that it was so good that some of the points that were made by the youth parliament we have actually taken them into consideration with the view to looking at incorporating them into the domestic violence bill. Senate President Senator Alvina Reynolds said she was impressed by this year's youth parliamentarians and found the interest shown for additional training to be commendable. They are part and parcel of country and not only for future but for now. It begins now preparing them giving them an exposure to what governance entails what is involved in the politics what we see happening the good the bad and the ugly so that they can prepare for governance in a better way to understand the process to understand what it takes to be a leader not only nationally but at the community level there will come the day when they'll have to vote for at the level of the council at community level they may change things around so I think they need to be exposed they need to understand what is happening and so they can appreciate it and put their best foot forward and bring other young people to represent young people but represent the country as a whole. John Tench will be serving as prime minister during youth parliament. We had training from the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate really informing us and especially the new ones about the processes involved in parliament the importance of parliament and really the importance of this bill that we're debating this year and it's the domestic violence bill it is the most progressive domestic violence bill in the region and so it really is an opportunity for young people to put their voices together and comment on laws that the government has passed. So the experience has been for you yeah the experience has been wonderful we've had training from I think all the way in May June and we're just wrapping things up as we prepare for the 25th and 27th of this month. Members of the public will again be able to follow youth parliament live on the national television network. From the Minister of Youth Development and Sports I'm Ryan O'Brien.