 The Youth Empowerment Program has held its first activity under its component titled Creative and Expressive Arts for Peace and Development. Chevroy Marius has more. Acknowledging the power of music in influencing young people, the Ministry of Equity, Social Justice, Local Government and Empowerment has teamed up with the Community Relations Branch of the Royal St. Lucia Police Force to host an extempo challenge under the Youth Empowerment Project YEP. This project is jointly funded by the Government of St. Lucia and the Caribbean Development Bank, CDB. This initiative targets youth within castries and is intended to provide an avenue for them to creatively express themselves on social issues, with a focus on identifying youth-oriented solutions to some of these issues. In preparation for this challenge, the Ministry is hosting a series of training workshops geared towards sensitizing the youth on matters relating to the impact of crime and violence on the society. The workshops which are being hosted at the Castries Town Hall commenced on Saturday, April 24th, 2021 and will continue every Saturday until the end of May 2021. Inspector Alex Morgan of the Royal St. Lucia Police Force and one of the programme facilitators emphasise the importance of young people finding alternative ways to express their views on social issues. Through your involvement, we could know where we are going as a country. We deliver crime and violence as it impacts our community and we're also looking at what we can do as individuals to ensure that we address that situation of crime and violence. In the process, we'll be looking for information from you as we speak as to what you think we can do about crime, what you think is working, what you think is not working and from there we can take it and you can also use some of that same information in your music when you do your extemp. A pleasant good morning to everybody. Welcome to the Extempo workshop. Order programme partners and facilitators include Dr Stephen King as well as Mr Gilroy Isaihol, Renan Extempo, Mona Kowsen Lucia and Ms Karen Tobie who are assisting participants with the compositions of their extempo lyrics. The workshops held thus far have yielded encouraging results as participants have actively participated in discussions on possible solutions relating to crime and violence in their communities. One workshop participant commended the ministry for a job well done. I'd like to thank my mother for introducing me to the event, telling me to come. So I came ahead and I must say the event was very empowering. It really spoke volumes to me. It was really uplifting to see the information that I grasped, the knowledge that I grasped. I also realised that there were a lot of young people involved so that's a good initiative because uplifting the young ones is always a good thing for the future. I learnt about robbery, I learnt about the community and safety and violence. Well we need to stop the violence so to stop the violence you just need to tell people to stop and if you don't tell them to stop it will just continue happening. A permanent secretary in the Ministry of Equity, Social Justice, Local Government and Empowerment, Mrs Valder Joseph is pleased with this initiative which she believes will not only help to foster a sense of awareness of the impact of social issues among the youth but also engender creativity and critical thinking. The Youth Empowerment Project which is currently being administered through the Ministry of Equity is one which has the youth as one of its primary target groups as well as families by extension. That project has several components and several initiatives attached to it, some of them ongoing and some to commence shortly. The Ex Tempo Challenge is one such initiative that is ongoing and I think it is a really creative way of engaging the energies of young people in thinking about the social issues that confront us and also in giving thought to the mitigation measures that can be implemented to reduce the risk and the impact of those issues. We welcome the initiative at the Ministry, we commend the organisers and we want to say to the young people, thank you for participating, we do recognise that you have answers to some of those issues, we do recognise that your contributions are meaningful and that you can play a key role in the sustainable development of your community. The Ex Tempo Challenge will be held on May 30th 2020 reporting from the Ministry of Equity, Social Justice, Local Government and Empowerment, I am Chavre Marius.