 Welcome to GIS Studios, SG Live 758, our youth dialogue for this year, and our theme is Moving Away from Tokenism, Youth, a Critical Part of Decision Making. My name is SB Francis, and I am the Caricom Youth Ambassador for St. Lucia. I would like to welcome our Secretary General of the Caricom Secretariat, Ambassador Irwin LaRocque. Thank you. Thank you for being here with us. I would also like to acknowledge the presence of the Assistant Secretary General, Ambassador Douglas Slater, Michelle Small-Bartley, the Deputy Program Manager of Youth Development at the Caricom Secretariat, and the Director of Youth in the Ministry of Equity, Social Justice, Empowerment, Youth Development, Sports and Local Government, Miss Mary Wilfred. I would like to also say welcome to our live audience, many of our youth of St. Lucia and those regionally watching us via the internet. To begin, I would like us to stand as we pay tribute to our island, St. Lucia, with the National Anthem. Ladies and gentlemen, of course, I acknowledge another person that my colleague has introduced this afternoon. I am also one of the Caricom Ambassador for St. Lucia. This afternoon's dialogue is indeed a momentous occasion. We have with us many youth representatives from various organizations on island as well as, of course, the Caricom, members of the Caricom Secretariat, who have graced us with their presence and have come to actually engage us in the topics that we have found to be relevant. Born on St. Lucia's sister isle, or more popularly known as the Nature Isle, Dominique Ambassador Irwin Laroque assumed the office of Secretary General of the Caricom Secretariat on the 15th of August, 2011, following his election by the Conference of Heads of Governments of Caricom on July 21st in Natsimia. He is the seventh Secretary General of the Caricom Secretariat. Ambassador Laroque's service at the Caricom Secretariat began in 2005, September, when he assumed the position of Assistant Secretary General, Trade and Economic Integration. Educated at Queens College and the New School for Social Research, that is, both in New York and New York University, he majored in political philosophy, pure economics and political economics. His studies are very obviously prepared him to provide strategic leadership for the continuing of the implementation and further development of the Caricom Single Market and Economy, also known as CSM. Prior to his appointment as Assistant Secretary General, he served as permanent secretary in various ministries in Dominica for more than 14 years, including the ministries of trade, industry, enterprise development, tourism and foreign affairs, where he headed the diplomatic service. He also served as the Principal Advisor to the Governments of Dominica on all matters pertaining to economic integration and regional and international trade. With a profound history in management, public administration, economic development, trade, foreign affairs and diplomacy, Ambassador Laroque is definitely an embodiment of knowledge and experience. So ladies and gentlemen, we know what I have introduced to you once more, Ambassador Owen Laroque. Thank you. Well, thank you Ambassador Hunt and thank you Ambassador Francis. It's a great pleasure to be here with you once again this evening for this interaction with youth of our community. I want to recognize in particular Caricom Youth Ambassador Co. It is through their efforts that this event is taking place here today and we began doing this in 2013 and we've done this as a joint initiative, but the Youth Ambassador Co. taking the lead since then and setting the topics, the place, the location and etc. And it's been a wonderful experience and I look forward to us dialoguing again this afternoon. You've chosen some very interesting topics. As I always say when I am here, I'm going to answer as much as I can and if I don't know the answer, I'll tell them I want to get back to you on them. But I think I want to be very open. I want to recognize our studio audience, the youth here with us. I'm glad you could make it. As well as reaching out to the youth throughout our community and I'm sure those who are listening from the Caribbean diaspora, those persons in other areas that are logging in and I look forward to a good interactive dialogue with the two of you and the rest of the community. Thank you very much Ambassador Laroque. This is an interactive youth dialogue. So we're expecting interactions with, of course, our youth, okay, but we will take a short break and we will get back to you with our first thematic area. Thank you. Human trafficking happens in plain sight, know the signs, see it, report it. To report suspected cases of human trafficking, call the TIP hotline at 847. The people who are in the TIP hotline know that the people who are in good health are the ones who are breathing these vets. People who are suffering from HIV, alcohol, caffeine, and other diseases. This is very important for these diseases. People who are in the TIP hotline are not allowed to go to public places. They are allowed to work in the hotline. Visit the doctor in the hotline. All right, welcome back everybody. Before we proceed to our very first thematic area, just like to let the viewers at home know that if you would like to follow the dialogue on TV and your provider's flow, the channel is channel 122. The very first thematic area to be discussed this afternoon is tokenism. I have the honor of giving you a very brief background on the topic. Tokenism is defined as making only a symbolic effort to do a particular thing, especially by recruiting a small number of persons from an underrepresented group in order to give the appearance of equality. Tokenism involves the symbolic involvement of a person in an organization due only to a specific accuracy, be it gender, race, ethnicity, disability, or age. For this afternoon's dialogue, one of the main focuses would be age, particularly the youth bracket. Is tokenism truly an issue faced by youth in the Caribbean? There are multiple frameworks and other binding agreements which advocate for representation of youth in the decision making process. For instance, the declaration of power marital on the future of youth in the Caribbean community, which came into being in 2010, identifies young people as assets to be developed, not problems to be sought. The declaration affirms the right of adolescents and youth to participate in decision making matters in which they have an interest in and that can affect them towards improved standards of living at national and regional levels. However, it has been stated and is abundantly clear that some persons are of the view that simply being a young person does not afford you the right to influence the decisions that actually ultimately affect you. The declaration states, we the heads of the Caribbean community are fully convinced of the benefits to be derived from institutionally strengthening and erasing the profile of departments responsible for youth affairs, national youth councils, the Caricom is ambassador program, and other youth governance structures. The heads also declared that they would establish when necessary policies and programs to engage the creative intellect and energy of all youth in facing several challenges in the region to support national and regional youth governance networks with clearly articulated roles for national youth councils, Caricom is ambassadors, and other national and regional structures. Since then, we have definitely seen an increase in youth representation at both the national and regional levels. Herring solution, for example, certain entities, for example, the national trust and the national advisory board, or the country coordinated mechanism which exists within the Ministry of Health, all seem to ensure that there is youth representation at specific forums or consultations. The Caricom is ambassadors as well as members of the national youth council executive are also invited to participate in regional forums. We have also seen the advent of the national student council and increasing the number of subsidiary groups. At this point, I would just like to acknowledge the presence of our members of the national youth council and national students council as well as our members from the Shabitha feds. Your efforts have definitely been greatly appreciated. As stated in the declaration, governments around the region currently host national youth award ceremonies where young people who diligently towards the development of youth and community are acknowledged and rewarded for their efforts. Despite the fact that there are now mechanisms in place to acknowledge the efforts of youth, we must admit that there are shortcomings as it relates to crucial aspects of youth development. For example, access to resources, financial and otherwise, varies amongst youth focus organizations. Despite this being very specifically highlighted in the implementation matrix of the Caricom Youth Development Action Plan as a priority action for the period 2012 to 2017, the Caricom Youth Development Action Plan is a document which speaks to the goals or the objectives that youth organizations and the relevant ministries are to move forward towards. The metric states, member states should have in place policies that includes provisions for financial and technical support to youth government instructions. To appoint a young person to a position without furnishing them with the skills, knowledge and access to resources required to carry out their mandate is a subtly malicious practice which widens the divide between youth development practitioners and the very youth that they aim to serve. A youth leader branded with a title but provided with little to no resources is synonymous to a knight with no sword, a warrior with no axe or a king with no crown, powerless and ineffective, unable to inspire. After this intro, I would just like to ask one question to get the discussion going. In recent times, some local and regional entities have recognized youth as partners in the decision making process and youth have been consulted at varying levels, be it in attending meetings or even holding positions of certain boards and committees. From the surface, this shows that the opinions of youth are being considered in the planning and execution of initiatives. Nevertheless, youths still continue to experience feelings of tokenism within these spaces. Ambassador Love, how can we ensure that the opinions and suggestions given by youth in these forums are materialized? Well, thank you for that question. First of all, I take very seriously these outreach programs and the interactions that I've had with youth over the years. My one major regret is that I don't have the adequate amount of resources to put behind the Karecom Youth Ambassador's program. I recognize that there are a number of shortcomings that we need to beef up on, and we're going to be working on those. But as far as we are capable of doing this, you mentioned that we've been having consultations, we've invited youth ambassadors to not just these forums but one-on-ones, and on occasions we invite you over to the Secretariat, we consult with you. A major consultation took place when we were preparing the Karecom Strategic Plan, the Committee Strategic Plan. By the way, we're going to do another one starting at the end of this year, and we will be consulted extensively on these plans. The question is, how do we translate what you express into action? The first thing is that not everything that gets expressed can be put into action. You have to select, you have to prioritize, you have to put it in a framework. We are in the Secretariat are guided by a certain program of work which is influenced by various factors, including the youth, and we try our best to see how we could do that. I know one of the big issues that the youth keeps speaking about is representation, that the voice can be heard, and how do we action that? And how do we coordinate among the myriad of various youth groups that exist? I know that there are several national youth councils in each of the member states, sorry, throughout the region, and within the member states there are a number of youth groups. How do you coordinate not only nationally but among all of the youth groups in the 15 member states and the five associated member states? And as an issue that we have taken up, we want to see how using the Caracom Youth Ambassador Corps as the core to be the, first of all, the interlocutor, as I've been anticipated, with the, not just the Secretariat, but the Secretary General, but with the various organs where that lends itself to, so that that is the core. And how then do we reach out? And how then is the Youth Ambassador Corps coordinate with all of the other groups? We had a meeting with a consultation, and I guess that was going to be used quite a bit, but that's how we do our work. With many of the CYAs in Guyana in January, I think you were there. Yes, I was. Correct. I'm not sure if you were there. No, unfortunately. And we set in train to put in place a mechanism that would allow for that kind of coordination, I'm speaking about, with a view to putting forward a recommendation to the heads of government on how we could institutionalize that interactive process. We had set a target for this meeting in San Lusia, knowing that we were coming here. Regrettably, we were not able to achieve that for various reasons. One of which is that I did not bring, wasn't able to bring Michelle on board until May, our Deputy Program Manager of Youth. And as a result, things were not moving as fast as we wanted to. But rest assured that we're going to bring this back on the screen, looking forward to seeing how we can make that into a reality. And the other thing we want to do is to look at the youth action plan, set targets, and monitor how we're going to be implementing some of the things that we prioritize. We are now putting in place throughout the region a resource based management system, not only for the youth program, but for all of our programs. That involves not just the secretariat, but also the member states and the institutions, because whatever we have to do in our region is a partnership between the secretariat, the institutions of the community, and the member states. The member states do most of the implementation, if not all. And we have to be able to account for our stewardship in terms of advancing the regional integration movement. So what I can do here this evening is to commit to ensuring that we do live up to that commitment we made in January of this year, that I know there's some of the consultations we've done between the CYA and some of the national groups to come up with the mechanism and how it's going to work. My view is that you have to be at the apex of this. I think the CYA has to be at the top. You are going to be the main interlocutor. Actually, the CIA was created many, many years ago for that express purpose. And it was recognized by the heads of government in the declaration that we should play that role. And I mean to give that reality. When I became Secretary General and I got my first briefing on the youth program and I realized that certain things were declared and not an action was taking place, that's how I began to interact with the youth, at least to give that window of a voice. And I think it has established itself. And I think there are some recommendations that have come on board that we have taken on board and moved forward with. So it may not be as much as you would wish to hear. I don't think I am, I don't see you as a token at all. It is very, very seriously. I don't think you have the time or I have the time for us to be seeing that as a token. If I am not as successful as I would like to be, it's because sometimes the resources are not there. But you have my pledge that I will do as much as I can to ensure that this is not the case. I cannot speak of what happens at the national level. I can't. And I can't speak about, there's very often a desire for everybody to reach in. It has to be coordinated. It has to be in a structured way. We're about to do this with the private sector. We're about to do this with civil society. We're about to do this with labor. And youth is a partner in that amalgamation of having voices heard so that we can implement and advance our integration arrangements. I quite appreciate what you just said about including the Cary-Commute Ambassador call within future plans. Because it actually led up to my question after Mark. We discussed earlier that the dialogue is something that has been occurring for a while. And we even give recommendations on changing the venue, probably next time we'll do it by the beach. You're in the beach, right? Right? More youth-friendly. And I was thinking to myself, what format would make it more targeted to youth? Because while we do appreciate the dialogue with you here, there still may be a lot that might be lost in translation. There's only so many questions we can take. There are only so many online viewers who can attend. So if you had to change the format, and I know you're not technically youth, I'll classify you as age youth because you still work for us, right? Are you so hot? Exactly. Senior youth, if you had to change the format to include more governmental support, maybe more private sector support to this type of dialogue, what would you suggest? I think we shouldn't limit ourselves to just this dialogue. This happens once a year. I think it's how do we put in place a mechanism to allow for the constant interaction as we go forward, right? This is one manifestation of it. Call it the culmination, the high point of a given year. But in between, we have to be able to do this. And I've done other outreaches, not in a studio setting. I was in a hotel room once, and I think the youth forced me to use Twitter for the first time. We did a Twitter relay. And the questions were coming in fast and furious. We communicated for a couple of hours and then when I visit member states and the opportunity to present themselves, I do interact. But I think we have to sort of systematize it that we've also invited youth ambassadors to attend when our youth ministers are meeting at regional level. We've involved you in such programs that have a life such as our Pankap program, HIV and AIDS, your keen voice, and an advocate. I know we did a recent program with these UIAs in Trinidad and Tobago, I think. A little bit here is your dates, but either late last year or this year we did that. And that kind of activity is going to continue. So it has to be done at very levels. But we have to be able to reach out in a coordinated way. And that's why I think the mechanism that you propose, that we propose, is something that we really have to work on to see how we can get this working life. So I heard you here in San Lucia, I'm going to speak about the National Youth Council and what's happening here. And how do we replicate that in other member states? And how do we feed all of that, 15 plus five, 20 of that sort of thing, into the CYA core, right? And then give that representation of voice at the appropriate forum where the policy makers sit and meet. You have access to me. I mean, I've never been asked by the youth ambassador called to meet and I say no. I mean, I'll be able to do it on a particular day, but I always meet with you. You have access to me and that access is going to be there as long as I'm Secretary General. Wonderful. And I'm open to other formats, as you put it, in terms of how we do the outreach. But I think we have to work with you on how we do this. We've also had, and I recognize we have to do a little more coordination between the youth ambassador core and the secretary at the youth ambassador, ambassador at the national level, and the other caracom focal points in terms of the CSME, the caracom ambassador. And these are discussions we've been having with the caracom ambassadors when we meet. How do we put all of that together? So all of these efforts, all of these united efforts can result in moving forward as we go ahead. So I'm hopeful that we can do this. Don't think this is a simple thing, because coordination is not easy. You think of coordinating at the national level and multiply that by 20. Oh, wow. It's not an easy thing. But we have to try. And we have to make progress where we can. And we have to identify the priority areas. When we started the core, I think we had identified three or four issues that we wanted the youth ambassador to promote. And then the youth have been bringing their own issues now. We started off with the CSME and one or two others and HIV and AIDS. And now the issues expanding to your issues. How do you prioritize the issues and do that? Wonderful. Wonderful response. I would now like to take any questions from our audience. Like I said, this is a dialogue. And we're interacting with youth. Can we get the mic over to this gentleman? To the first vice president of the National Youth Council, Mr. Noia Salfran. Please let him introduce himself. This man needs no introduction. This is the mayor of Shoseu. Good afternoon, Master Del Oroc, Mark Hesley. Thank you for the invitation to part of this dialogue. We're speaking about tokenism and respect about the world in young people. And I just want to bring up something which came up at the recent General Assembly meeting on the Commonwealth Cardinal Regional Youth Council. And I think that one of the reasons that if there is any question as to tokenism is because often we see youth development or youth development would be sort of like a competition between the person who are supposed to be working on behalf of young people and young people themselves. And we speak about the coordinating mechanism. And I specifically remember that being brought up at the recent General Assembly of Korea. And when it was brought up to the members, it was not something that was embraced, basically, because a lot of the things that the coordinating mechanism spoke to, that is actually supposed to be the role of the Caribbean Regional Youth Council. And we saw it as duplication. So what I want to know from the ambassadors and from you, Ambassador Del Oroc, is how does CARICOM intend to work, instead of working aside from or apart from organizations that already basically do the same thing? How do we intend to work together to ensure that there is no duplication across the region? And I mean, I think the opportunity to probably set a proposal out there being a member of the organizing team of the Caribbean Youth Leaders Summit that is supposed to happen in Barbados in November. That is actually a space where CARICOM leaders, the persons who are in charge of the Caribbean Regional Youth Council, can probably meet to try to see ways in which we can collaborate, instead of working against each other, because at times that's what it seems like to me. I want to appreciate the nurse. I'm going to try to respond. OK. Duplication must be avoided at all times. But there's a difference between duplication and coordination. And what I'm suggesting is that we have to coordinate. Now, what are the strengths or what are the opportunities that each of these, you mentioned the Commonwealth, the Commonwealth Youth Council, and it is being done. And now, you mentioned that we are going to be doing it. What I've mentioned here is that the CARICOM Youth Ambassador Corps has access. We have to understand the governance arrangements in our community. We're creating a Caribbean community. And the apex of that is the Heads of Government conference. Of that construct is the CARICOM Youth Ambassador Corps. That CARICOM Youth Ambassador Corps has access through the Secretary General and hopefully in the future, perhaps direct. It has access. And it begs the question of how then do we see that as an opportunity to allow for that institutionalized access to reach out to the other mechanisms as being, the mechanisms that you mentioned about how do we bring them all together? So I don't think we have to reinvent the wheel. We don't have to go and create a new mechanism. As a matter of fact, I understand that when the discussion took place in January, they were supposed to be reaching out to a number of other groups. That's my understanding based on the report that I got. And that would come back together, hopefully, for another, I imagine, of a sitting. I guess we'll have to work it out. And then come up with some structure. What I am saying here is that let us not reinvent the wheel, as you said. The CARICOM Youth Ambassador Corps exists. There's a CARICOM Youth Ambassador there. Two CARICOM Youth Ambassadors in every member state. And I think in most of the associate member states, it's not all. And as I said, there already is that apex mechanism for getting the voice to a point where it can be heard at the regional level. So let's see how we utilize that. Let us see, don't see it as duplicating. Let us see how we can utilize the opportunities where there exists to allow that voice to be heard. I have to agree with you and I have to agree with Niaz as well. I think every CARICOM Youth Ambassador within every country is willing to work with every youth group. I just think that a lot of the time we're not aware, completely aware of the power that you say we have, the access that you say we have, because of maybe how the program is established or how the mechanisms run in every country. But I think that this should serve as an eye opener. And yes, feel free to call on me. I am here. I am willing Niaz to work with anyone and everyone as long as it's for the betterment of youth development. Well, I'm to touch on the e-contribution meeting by Mr. Alfred. This is definitely a conversation that we have had before. Even amongst the colleagues who attended the consultation at the Secretary in January, we did consider all of these things. I can remember a colleague from St. Vincent actually mentioned that what we are trying to do is essentially already in existence, somewhat. It's just that they are not particulars that are highlighted. What needs to happen is that we need to work on housekeeping in terms of actually ensuring that what we are doing is actually conducive to the other and in terms of not competing with our fellow youth practitioners. So we're coordinating as well on the national level. Because as SB is correctly saying, there's no reason that the car commit ambassadors cannot collaborate with the National Youth Council as well as the National Student Council when, of course, our mandates overlap. There's no reason why we should not be able to do that. However, if it is not institutionalized or standardized in one instance, for example, then we would end up in a situation where it becomes chaotic. And I think that has actually led to this circumstance that now is highlighted where it seems to be a competition. Which actually takes us to one of our former students. Before you move, Matt, can I ask you a question? Because I understand that the commonwealth arrangement has certain strengths in terms of in doing training for leadership and certain things of that nature, if I'm correct. So that is a strength that they have that we don't have as a secretary, because we don't have the resources. But the CIO has a strength that needs to be recognized equally. So while we, in the scheme of things, recognize that we have to tap into that to allow for all our CIOs to be exposed and so on and to allow for greater coordination, I think that other mechanism needs to recognize what can be the role of the CIO. Now the CIO's role is going to be more a perspective from a regional perspective, while some of the other work has been done is more of a national. So I think there's a lot of room for coordination, a lot of room. I think we just have to try and work it through. Thank you. We have a question down at the front. Yeah, I'm Lashon Dennis from Castro Central, Community Liaison. I just want to say, just listening here, is that I'm seeing to myself the whole tokenism of that communication is a big problem for all the member states. And that is something I believe that should be enhanced and also that the youth that are representing the youth overseas and throughout the Caribbean must take on their self that is this is not basically like a personnel thing or a self thing for self-gratitude but actually it's for the Italian youth and anything like that. So when you go out and speak on a regional level or a national level, most times you'll not find that they'll have weight because a lot of the topics they come up with and speak about is not even relevant throughout the communities itself. And a lot of youth are not even attached to what is happening within the different organizations and whatnot and whatnot. So I believe that it's not really tokenism but it's really communication and people have to realize that it is not a self thing but it's for actually what is happening throughout the Caribbean. Excellent. Wonderful. Another question towards the back. Down in the one national youth council, my statement is more or less along the lines. Especially what Mr. LaRocque said in relation to the role of the CYAs in taking the issues and the situations on the ground level and taking it up to the curriculum level. I think if we are to realize that goal then the program seriously needs to be resourced a lot much than it's being resourced right now. And through coordination, through getting the buy in from curriculum heads that this is a woe file program. We have CYAs who are excellent on the ground level but there's not much coordination where we could say that CYAs have an office in the department of youth or CYAs have an office in the office of the national youth council. I think if we're looking at getting these young people to take the issues of our curriculum youth up to heads of government, then definitely we need to find a creative way of getting the buy in because at present it doesn't look like the youth ambassador, sorry, yeah the curriculum youth ambassadors program is a major priority for heads of government right now. But yeah, I think we have to look at how, there's been a period where there's been a bit of a lull. Okay, let's disagree on that. But I think we have to see how we use the limited resources that we have to do what we have because the resources are limited. And I always say resources go where it recognizes value added is going to be realized. So if you know that you're gonna get something out of something, you put your time, your effort, your resources into it. That applies almost across everything that we do. Almost every work that I do in a secondary life. If it is not resourced and people don't see the value in it and wasting time and the resource is not gonna go afterwards. So we have to look at that and see how we build the value added that the, first of all, you, the youth have to recognize and we have to communicate, accept that point, communicate the value, the potential value of the youth ambassador core to you. And then we have to be able to communicate upwards and then we have to give the channel for it to go through. There's a number of things that we have to put in place. In some of the member states, the youth ambassadors are very active. Sometimes they're resourced. Sometimes they're just creative. I've met some youth ambassadors that have been really creative in getting things done. Perhaps because of the particular location that we've been at a particular point in time. But I think we need to be able to harmonize and I know sometimes we onboard, we have youth ambassadors and we don't do sufficient enough to onboard the youth ambassadors in terms of what is your role, how we could communicate, how we could support each other. I am aware of that and we're gonna be addressing that already. And when Michelle and I met, we discussed those issues, some of the priority areas that we have to look at. Already she's beginning to look at some of those things. How do we equip you, how do we... So how do we give you the visibility as well? And that is the value added that you bring. And how do we get our member states to recognize that you have that role to play? The member states have recognized, there's a caracom ambassador to each member state, from each member states to caracom. They recognize a caracom ambassador. How do I get the caracom ambassador and the youth ambassador to work together so that you are part of and parcel of that effort going forward? There are three focal points, really. It's you, the youth, there's the CSME focal point and there's the caracom youth ambassador. The caracom, sorry, the caracom ambassadors. The caracom ambassadors, I met with them, I met with them a couple of weeks ago and the element was, we don't have resources, we don't have resources. We want to do this, we want to do that, we don't have resources. That was the element of the ambassadors themselves in terms of, so it's the same thing. How do we do what we can with the limited resources here by being focused and prioritizing issues? I think it's a big challenge that we're gonna have and recognize the value that we can bring for both ways. I can speak for myself. I may not be able to speak for all the CYAs watching right now. Hello out there. But we do appreciate Miss, well she doesn't like me to call her Miss, but Michelle, she's small, badly becoming part of our team and she has been working, messaging, asking questions, finding out what we need, what we want to see happening and we do appreciate that both of you are coordinating to help improve the program because we don't want to see it disintegrate and just fall by the wayside for us to be just known as, she was a caracom ambassador, but she didn't really do anything. We don't want that to happen. She's not gonna allow that to happen. I know she's not. I can already tell she's not going to allow that to happen. But yes, we do recognize her work even though she's just started and we do appreciate it. Just letting everyone know out there we are accepting online questions. UETV is here and we have our streaming occurring on our caracom website. So if on Facebook, sorry. So if you have questions that you need to ask, please don't hesitate to send it in. Do we have any other audience members? Okay. I'm asking. On behalf of the online platform, his Excellency said the Secretariat doesn't have the resources to build leadership for CYA. His question is what is or what does the Secretariat intend to do about this? You can't have an officer without an office. If it is the local youth office to find such resources, what can caracom do to ensure this? Okay. I think what I was trying to say if I didn't say it correctly is that the Commonwealth program provides leadership training. Am I correct? One of the programs I understand that they have and they've had it for many years. We don't have the resources to do that. And why should we do that if resources are limited when somebody else is doing it? Why don't we coordinate to get it done collectively? That's the message I was trying to get together. So we recognize where the value at is, recognize the strengths that we have with the CYA, resource that particular strength adequately from our standpoint. The other organizations that have their particular strengths resource that adequately and bring, so therefore, you don't spread any resources too thin. It's being channeled where the priorities are, where the strengths are and bring them together. And that's the message I was trying to, now there's a minimum of resources that any kind of community ambassador would wish to have to allow them to function, I accept that. But I was making a particular reference to the strength that I heard coming out of the Commonwealth youth program. So your take on the sharing of resources is sort of like what PANCAP is doing, given us training on HIV, advocacy and so on. So it's like killing two birds with one stone. We're working with them and then into the weekend work. Precisely. And then, for instance, because of PANCAP has a strength in doing that particular leadership on HIV and AIDS and that sort of thing, I would suggest that anybody else wants to do it, to tap into the PANCAP program as a sting from duplicating it. And others who are doing other kinds of the program, we tap into that program. I think that's the kind of coordination we need to bring together. All right, if I'm just to chime in, what I'm gathering from a couple of the contributions made both by audience as well as you and Barca and SB, reminds me of another statement that I was actually brought up at the secretariat in January, where it was said that for there to be effective use of scarce resources, then two things are key. That is collaboration and cooperation. In terms of what Mr. Le Bon mentioned, in terms of the office space and the National Youth Council and the COIs working together. I'm not sure if many people seem to realize, but it's actually mentioned in the COA handbook that the COIs and the National Youth Council are supposed to work hand in hand in terms of actually working on the grounds and then bringing the issues and the solutions as well, the initiatives, the proactive initiatives. Because I feel like sometimes we think about youth affairs as issues. Most times they are very proactive youth projects and programs that have been implemented and have been executed both on a national and regional level. I think we should just have to raise awareness for. Even in terms of the question that was raised by the contributor online, simply setting out the guidelines or setting out the parameters that would say the National Youth Council or the CACA ambassadors are to have access to the National Youth Council's office, for example, or the National Youth Council and the CACA ambassadors are to work together to plan certain initiatives. That doesn't mean that the COA should be involved in every single affair of the NYC. However, at key times or for certain issues or initiatives, then there should be some kind of. Collaboration. Agreed. Question at the front? Yes. A question from an online contributor, Celia de Vicente Francis. She's the regional coordinator of the Uistat Ambassador Corps. And she's saying, before I ask the question, she's saying that the 2010 declaration of prime margo on the future of youth in the Caribbean community held the heads of government declared that they would develop a mechanism. So she's saying the heads of government declared that they would develop a mechanism for the sustained and structured involvement of youth in decision-making process of the community. Very important for mechanisms for this implemented. Uistat would like to be involved, especially reclimbing change. And her question is, what are the specific processes or mechanisms that carry come via the COA doing to make this a reality? Marcus, I think one of the groups that we identified that has to be part of that coordinating mechanism, there's the Uistat, and there's a third one which escapes me right now. I mean, it was Saipan. Sorry? Saipan. Yes, which would have to work. We would work the CYA with those two groups to begin to do the coordination. So there is a role for Uistat in this process. I know Uistat has reached out to us. And in my communication with them at that point in time, and I met with them in Jamaica, was that we have to see how we work together, recognizing, of course, again, once again, I gotta put a plug for my CYA, what the CYA is, but we're very open to working. And as a matter of fact, the Uistat is recognized as going to be, because they reach out regionally as well. They reach out, of course, not just the campuses, but when the alumni reach out as well. So we have a matrix of reaching out. Any questions? Any more questions? Ambassador, we have a question here from Surinam. They are asking if the first youth agenda can be proposed for the carry come heads meeting in February 2020. Very nice question. I can't commit to that. But I think we have to, you see, if I give you a promise that I don't commit to, you're gonna hang with my index. I told you that when we met in January, we committed to trying to get it to here. We haven't reached here because it's a body of work to be done still. Once that body of work is done, once that body of work is done, and it's not going to be done at the secretariat alone, my body said that it will be coordinated in that work. It has to be done throughout the region, the outreach. Once that work is done, I promise you will get that access to the conference of government agenda. If it's February, it's done by February, it will happen in February. Let's work towards it, but I can't say it's going to happen in February. In other words, I can't go to the heads with workers incomplete. That's what I'm trying to say. Complete the work. Michelle, we're gonna complete the work. We aim for February. If not, then it's on a slide. That's the commitment I can make. Let's complete the work because there was a body of work set out to be done that has to be done. As I said, Michelle only came on board in May, so we had a little bit of a break in between. She's back on board and we've heard that she's reaching out. So let's see what we can do. Questions, any more questions? Okay. I know that it's a lot. 20 countries, 15 members, five associated states. It is a lot of heads, different ideas, different perspectives of what youth should be allowed to do or participate in or the decision making processes they should navigate. But I'm thinking of St. Lucia because we're in St. Lucia right now and 90% of the room is St. Lucia. What do you think we as youth should be doing more of to ensure that successive governments of our country are held accountable to the commitments they have made and signed off to as CYAs, as National Youth Councils and so on? Advocacy. The more you advocate for what you want. If you're silent, you don't get anything. If you're coordinated in your advocacy to ensure continuity. Not a lot of voices, a lot of noises. Coordinated advocacy works. Consistent, coordinated advocacy. Put the three of them together. I feel that I view you as part of a constituency, a regional constituency. The people of the Caribbean are part of a regional constituency. I can do all of the work that I have to do in the Caracom Secretariat and unless the people of the community see value in it and unless the demand of their various authorities that is going to benefit them and put it in place and unless I can convince, of course, the government themselves that there's going to add value to what they're doing. It's not going to get done. So it's consistent, coordinated advocacy. You as a constituent out there for the youth. It's a formidable voice. It's a formidable voice if you can coordinate the youth of the region to try to get action in a coordinated way. Not a voice for noise. Not a noisy voice. Not a noisy voice. Not a lot of din in the room, but a coordinated, sustained advocacy. Let me ask you. Last question. All right, just very briefly. Since, as we mentioned, and I mentioned as well, there are frameworks that have already been signed on and agreed to and there are proclamations. The Declaration speaks to commitments that were made by governments in 2010. We are in 2019 and we have observed that there have been some strides. We have seen that some governments have kept to the commitments, however, I also see in shortcomings, as you mentioned. I think what the question really was pointed at is, are there no ramifications or are there no sanctions? Not now. Our community doesn't have sanctions in that sense. Right. You already have to advocate and persuade and so on. However, why is it necessary to advocate for something that was already committed to? Well, we advocated, okay, the Declaration took place in Suriname in 2010. If you all didn't keep on reminding, we wouldn't have reached where we have reached up to now. When the youth summit took place in Paramedic in 2010, and I came on board and I heard what happened. I was not present. I heard what happened in Paramedic. And I heard the dissatisfaction of the youth. And I realized that I had to do something with whatever limited resource that I had. But if the youth did not do anything and see anything, we wouldn't have reached where we are. Sometimes things have a long, I know that we all want to see things happen overnight. And I do too. I get very impatient with the Secretary in terms of how long things take to get done there. I tell you so honestly. But if you're not consistent and persistent and working on things, your voice doesn't get heard, but it has to be in a channeled way. And it doesn't apply only to the youth, you know. When we advocate as a community over internationally, as 15 voices, you have to, you will understand the word yin yin in Saint Lucia. And our colleagues in Dominica will understand the word yin yin. It's a pesky little fly. I'm not asking it to be pesky, but you have to be persistent in a coordinated way. And I keep saying in a coordinated way, because we have been making strides as a community, if I may just digress momentarily, on certain issues that put into small island developing states or peculiarities and the need for resilience. But it's a long haul and you have to count your, I know we're all impatient because you're not gonna be used forever. You will soon be joining me on this and then somebody will be asking you the questions. Somebody will be asking you the questions, but we have to keep on keeping on at it and don't give up. Thank you. Don't give up. Thank you. We're going to be taking a quick break, but I just want to summarize what you last said and remind our youth to be a persistent, not pesky yin yin. Thank you. I am a child. I am HIV positive. I am a Muslim. I'm a journalist. I am gay. I am a political activist. I am differently abled. I am Chinese. And me, I'm a little plus size. The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance of individuality and differences within all of us. A message brought to you by the Department of Health and Wellness. This is a crime to steal water. This is a violation of the law and a crime that can be committed as well as impossible to solve the system of the law. If the law is not cut, it will not be imposed by the law. If it is charged with $5,000, it will be 12 months in prison. If the law is not cut, it will be 4, 7, 3, 9, 0, 0. It will come to the law office in Lantrude. Therefore, it will suffer to talk to you. This is a Hodoa School Commission. I'm going to tell you about this afterwards. Okay, thank you and we are back. We will be discussing our second thematic area, which is regional integration, regional travel and entrepreneurship. I'm going to do a brief overview. I'm sorry if I bore you in advance, but we're going to start from the top. We know the Caribbean community, CARICOM, is a large organization. We've said it's made up of 15 member states, five associated states. Now, the mission of the organization is to deepen integration and resilience, to realize our Caribbean human potential, to create an environment of innovation, to develop technology, and to increase productivity and competitiveness, and also to increase savings and investment within our region. Now, CARICOM has long come to the consensus that integration would allow our countries to enjoy economies of scale, which would allow them to increase productivity, diversify their output, and in the end boost economic growth. Now, one of the surest ways of ensuring integration would be an efficient transport system within member states. However, the community has been faced with the challenge of establishing this efficient transport system due to operational limitations, geographical range of the islands, and they've been fighting for this since 1996. That's as far back as my research took me. I may be wrong. Now, a great push was made at the Heads of Government meeting in 2017. An ambassador, you were there to get governments to sign off the Multilateral Air Services Agreement, which would assist in charting away for easy original travel through CARICOM, and the agreement would ensure that CARICOM air carriers have fair and equal opportunities to compete in regional air transportation. Now, unfortunately, a lack of support for the agreement coupled with increased taxis and charges and fares imposed on air travelers have agitated members of the community to put it lightly. Okay, it has agitated some so far as they've started an online petition. I'm sure some of you have seen it. I voted. Now, community members are rightfully worried about unaffordable transportation. They're rightfully worried about the limitations that travel will have in accessing goods, services, tourism, niche markets, and of course, the ability for youth to engage, generate, and participate in meaningful employment. Now, in St. Lucia, we have many young entrepreneurs. We all know Johan Ndujon, so I don't even need to extend more on him. He was a creator of aglass organics, I said that right, right? We have some smaller known people, Dion Carey and Koch Jewelry. I believe they make personalized jewelry. We have Healthy Strand 758, who produces natural hair products. And these young people have sought to combat the unemployment situation by paving and charting their own way. Now, as their businesses continue to grow, it is obvious that they may long to reach outside the island and branch out to other territories within our region. Concerns exist with the nature and the state of our regions, their travel at the moment. So how can Carey come ensure, or can Carey come ensure that business entrepreneurs are not limited in their scope for economical regional growth? Okay, you have a number of things rolled up into that introduction. I had to try my best. But you've done it quite well. I'm going to try to see why. You've connected them quite well, but I'm going to have to dissect them a little bit now and then reassemble them. Go ahead. The multilateral air services agreement, which you referred to, would have replaced a previous one that we had. We had a multilateral air service agreement that was signed after the 1996 period before we went into the single market, the CSME. It was not consistent with the revised treaty of Shahgram. So we had to renegotiate it and make it more consistent. Basically what it says is that we have an open skies agreement in our community. So that when it becomes operational, and I think we're very close, we need a certain number of signatures. I'm hoping that I can get it to all fingers crossed at this meeting. I think one of my staffs, and we may have that done this video, is here for further signature. It then becomes operational. What it does among the member states, it's easier for smaller airlines to gain access into the individual markets of the member states. So you're creating one air market. And to the extent that some of our original airlines are having challenges in servicing some routes, it may just be possible that some airlines may start off small by just going to two points and bridge a gap there. And the whole idea behind that is to allow for small operators to come in and to bridge that gap. So there's that aspect of freeing up the air space to allow for greater market in air service. Then comes the other issue of cost. The fact that, given our geographic location as one airline expert explained to me, the model for these, that Liat for instance has. It's a costly model. And not necessarily because of inherent inefficiency. Some say that is the case. But it's because of the model. You have short takeoffs and landing. Takeoff and landing. And that in itself has built in cost structures in it and so on. And maybe that is where you have the smaller commuters able to do that. So I don't know what can be done about the cost. At the same time that the taxis, the taxis on the airline ticket. But then the demands of the governments to upgrade the airports and even to build new airports where they don't exist. And where did the resources come from? So these are some of the issues that I know that the heads of government grappled with. Transportation is an issue that is receiving almost constant attention in that sense. We've actually looked at issues putting into establishing a ferry service. We did some work on that some years ago and when we did the analysis of previsibility, it was required a substantial subsidy from the member states to allow it to happen. In the region of five million US dollars for just six months. And then there will be need for attendant infrastructure development at the member state level if you want to give it roll and roll off because it was noticed that if you want to make it viable with cargo and passengers you may have to have roll and roll off. And that's what I see. It's back on the agenda. Again, I see on the agenda. Back for us to look at it one more time because something may prove not feasible now but down the road it becomes feasible for technological reasons and whatnot. I mean solar energy is a case in point. When we started talking about solar energy it was prohibitive. Now it's something that's very affordable. So we're back, that is back on track. And then the other aspect of travel is what we call hassle free travel. When we, I am Surinamangana in the southern most part of the Caribbean and that's where I resided. When we have to travel throughout the region if you're gonna go up to St. Kitts you have to go through security four and five times. And we're trying to address that because what it is that our security standards are not harmonized across the region. So we've begun a discussion to see how we can harmonize the security standards. So that you know that if you board an aircraft you pass through security checkpoint in country A that is a standard that will obtain in country B on your way to country C so that they may not be necessary for that. And the other issue is again that international when you travel internationally then the co-mingling of regional passengers and international is not something that is encouraged because you know then the security issues emerge. Those of you who go to Trinidad you'll see that Trinidad has a separate terminal for travel to Tobago assisting from other Caribbean countries but I was tempted to do this with the Liat. So these are some of the issues that have to be looked at. Some of them are structural to airports and some of them are more like trying to see how you could work on that. All of these things we're trying to work on. So that is a travel thing. Travel is one of the most difficult things that I've ever had to deal with in the Secretary of State. I tell everybody that. It's something that you know and then there's this small vessel service for cargo as well that is something that we have to look at because they play a very excellent role in moving produce especially among the islands. The short haul of agriculture products and how do you call them? I know the OECS for instance is doing quite a bit of work on the small vessels and the standards and what not that is trying to and we are very much aware of that and we see how we can collaborate in those areas. So that is a body of work that is being done there. How do you make it? Because some people tell me it's easier for them to go to Miami than to buy a ticket from the South of the Caribbean and go up to Belize or to other places and so on. And you really need an efficient and affordable transportation sector to build on to an integration. So the issue is not a simple one and we're hearing the different about Liat and I don't know what would happen if Liat were not around. I'm being honest with you. Liat is providing a service. I know sometimes we got annoyed and so on but Liat is providing a service. We bought Liat without to reinvent Liat without having a sort of regional commuter airline that can do the work and I know that the shareholder governments are looking at it very, very seriously to see how we can get it back on board. So that's one aspect of it. Now the other aspect is the movement of young entrepreneurs to apply the trade. And what we have in place is the big term, nice term, right of establishment. Basically what it means in the treaty is that a national of the community of one member state has the right to get into another member state and establish a business once he or she meets certain criteria of establishing. You're not just going there and say you're going to establish and you're going to land. You have to really go and establish a business. Not all big and small it is. And then we have other categories to allow for persons to move as well. Persons who are professionals who may be able to go and seek work. So that's an opportunity. Because the whole thing behind this is that in any one country, you put it right, the economies of scale may not be there but in a wider community it's there. And it allows for each other. Now it's there, it's working and there's some hiccups as well. I'm not going to say there are no hiccups. There are hiccups and you hear about the hiccups but you don't hear about those that the success is you don't hear about it. Because you get stuck at one airport and it makes the news. But the other that goes through and I've met persons who tell me, well they have a little business there and they have a business there. I met a young chap once and a very young fellow and he was doing fairly well and I said to him, well what is your business? He says he was a draftsman. He was drawing plans. I said, and where's your market? He says, the region. I said, what do you mean the region? You move around? He says, no, I have my computer. I market myself. I give him my samples of what I can do. I do everything by and his marketing, his knowing of everything you can do that way. But e-commerce is something that we have to look at as well. How do we bridge the divide with e-commerce? Or does a particular business that you're doing lend itself to that? You mentioned the entrepreneur on the seaweed, forgive me, I forget his name. I met him at Caribbean Recovery Culture in Barbados where he exhibited his wares. He had a lot of persons coming and inquiring because not only does he have something to sell, he is providing a solution to a problem. Right. So that's a double thing there. He's providing organic base for growing products and then he's providing a solution. So we're using what other means we have to allow for young entrepreneurs through Caribbean export as well. Caribbean export has programs. I think they want to start another one that would also allow for young entrepreneurs to apply their trade. We're looking at areas in the cultural industries where I know that our youth excel in the cultural, various aspects of the cultural industries that will include animation and the arts and so on. So these are all various areas we're looking to seek to promote and to allow those persons to move and apply their trade. We have 10 categories that have been approved. The heads are now asked us to look at two additional categories, agricultural workers and security personnel. Not security guards, but security personnel, which means that they're going to be standards and if you're a security personnel, you're a security personnel, you've got to fall in the sleep at the gate and so on. We all have that in our region. We know what it's like. So as we expand those categories and as they recognize and enshrined in the laws of the member states, not all the member states have passed the laws and that is where you now as a consistent, courted advocacy urge your governments to pass the categories into law. We can draft the laws, but we need your voices to help us to get them to pass the law. Somehow pass seven, eight, nine, 10, but there's some only pass five. So we need that and that enshrines your right. Your right, now you asked about sanctions. I'm not advocating that, but that's what the CCJ was created for. If the rights of a citizen is not adhered to, that person can have access at least to some sort of address and we know that some persons have used it in the past. I'm not advocating we all go to court because it's very expensive or not. But that's where the advocacy comes up as well and that's where you in trying to create the market to allow for persons to apply the trade in a genuine and proper manner. That's it. So what we try to do from a secretariat standpoint, from the standpoint of is to assist in creating the environment by doing the policies and the laws that would allow for those things to happen, the legal infrastructure. And that's the role that we play. But the implementation takes place at the member states level. Okay, thank you. Any questions from the Macalester? No. Any questions from our audience? No questions from our audience? You were so thorough. Come on Sean. For the Caribbean integration problem and travel and whatnot. Despite everything that the ferry service is the most economically thing because shipping is the most cheapest way to ship cargo and people around the world. And the air language could be a bit expensive. I believe the Caribbean region is a very strategic region for the whole world economy. But our leaders have not seen that from a very high level. Remember, we have to pass for the Panama Canal of the Caribbean Sea to enter the Panama Canal which will be navigation very short. And for the young entrepreneurs across the Caribbean against the tide for a lot of governments, bureaucracy and also government changing every now and then. So every time a government change at the end of the term, the policies change. People are supporting that government change then the personnel will be left in that trap. I remember a couple of years ago when they said we're going to be the best pass for the Caribbean and let us really integrate the Caribbean as a functioning unit like the European Union and stuff like that and we have the ability to do that. I know we saw that the ferry service is a challenge. I think we should go ahead of that challenge. Because for the long run, it will benefit us in the Caribbean. Just recently Martinique has put on another ferry service from here to St. Lucia. So in all in all, react maybe might sink the Caribbean and the air vibe might not work but shipping from the ferry service, the sea, it will always be the cheapest route, has always been the cheapest route and that is why I have so happy. Thank you very much. Thank you. Macalester wants to respond and then we'll take your question. All right Lashon. So I'd just like to say I appreciate the contribution. Earlier this year in February, I was able to attend the ECCB's Third Growth and Resilience Dial. Now it's very similar to what you're saying in terms of the discussion sometimes that happened at this dialogue. Sometimes it's really not relevant to the youth or you try to advocate or you try to inform persons of it and they're not particularly interested. However, that topic actually was one of those that came out and for the first time, well what we were told is that this was the first time that that information was being put out in a forum like that, that the ferry service was attempted as you were saying in terms of the schematics behind it, in terms of the logistics and the costing, the challenges that are very relevant. It is definitely, how to put it, a task to achieve. There are certain issues with it in terms of actually convincing the heads as well as getting persons on the grounds on indeed various territories to understand the value or the impact of travel within the region because even if you just show up for ferry service tomorrow and say this is available, how do we convince nationals to go across? How do I convince somebody from Anguilla to come down to solution when we know that at this stage, as well as we would like it, we are not integrated enough as a region but we do not understand the value of actually interacting within Karkom. I definitely agree with you that it is still something that needs to be worked on but needs to be worked on from multiple angles. It's something that needs a multilateral approach where you now begin sensitization and informing everybody from the young to the old in terms of the importance of regional integration, the opportunities for entrepreneurship as well as the importance for education and all of these things. And then if we can guarantee that we have a base where the revenue, the funds that would be generated would be able to match or even exceed the expenditure, the cost to actually get done, then we'll be in a better position to actually execute. Thank you, Mathias. I think again, the time we are looking at it, we're gonna look at it again and not only that, there's private sector interest. When we looked at it at that time, it was just pure governments looking at it. And obviously, the startup capital and the subsidies. Now they're persons, they were before and they've come back again, not the same persons, but persons have expressed an interest in once again looking at it and we're gonna work with them. You mentioned the ferry service that is from St. Lucia to Martinique. And similarly from, you can catch a ferry from St. Lucia and go all the way up to Guadalupe. You go from here to St. Martinique, Dominica. When it started, when it started in very, very early 90s, it was just two short hops, Guadalupe, Dominica and back. It wasn't going down because you had to get the client base used to doing that and then a client base was built and then and so on. Because one of the things that we found out that you point to, Mark, is that at that time, persons in their minds were not thinking about ferry. It's a fast one hour hop or 20 minute hop or 40 minute hop and not thinking about a ferry. Now I think it's going on us. And the other thing from logistics we have to work out is that it lends itself easier to some, between some destinations. The proximity between St. Lucia and Martinique lends itself. But believe it or not, the proximity, capital from Port of Spain to Georgetown would take eight hours, eight hour ferry ride. That's what we calculated and to Suriname even more. It doesn't look like it's much on a map but when you have to traverse that ocean, it's quite a bit. So some sectors might lend itself more readily and then you grow it out until you can. Those of us in the room who are not youth would remember the Federal Maple and the Federal Palm. My first visit to St. Lucia, my mother put the Federal Maple in Dominica and a relative here picked up at the port. I left Dominica in the morning, in the night I landed here. It was a boat. There were two gifts from the Canadian government and that's how we traveled in those days. You couldn't afford. You boarded that boat and you went on holidays in one of the other islands. So, but we forgot about that when the Federal Maple and the Federal Palm went to other business. Now we're looking to see now, has this time come once again? I like that, but we also need to consider even between that eight hour, between the two countries, there is room for entertainment that you can provide. Precisely. That's it. Precisely. You know, bring your stuff on. Entrepreneurs on board. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Make it a mini cruise. Exactly. We had a question in the corner to take Nia's after, but he had a question first. Good evening from Nick Sambarri. What are your thoughts? There's no fixed formula. It comes up usually from a government, a member state. Making a suggestion for whatever reason. And I'm saying this from the background that we are here at the EU forum in a sense. And quite a lot has been said about new development over the years by many leaders. And I'm wondering, why haven't you development? Been a category? Yeah. Why hasn't you development come up as a possible category? Because there are a lot of talks, especially from Commonwealth and perhaps Caracom about the professionalization of youth work. Even UWI is offering the new development degree and Commonwealth would have done the diploma and so forth from Georgetown back in the day. So I'm wondering if we are moving beyond tokenism and we are moving really to uplift youth through the Caribbean. Why hasn't that been part of the agenda? How can it become part of the... In a indirect way, it probably is already. You mentioned UWI is offering a degree and anybody with a degree has a right to move. So you have categories of skills, but you also have college graduates of recognized universities, of which UWI is one. So if you have a degree from UWI, then you can graduate in certain areas, you can move. I think that's how it works. Nice. Graduates, yes, graduates. Can we get a mic over here? So you can move, but the reason why skills sets were identified was to allow for certain skills to move for employment and job creation and so on. And we started small. You go to the treaty, there are only five categories there and over the years we've expanded it. And now we've reached where 10 is actually supposed to be enforced and two more we're working on, possibly a third one, which is still being negotiated because the members just have to find agreement. So I would mention a third one here to make it 13. We have a question from the gentleman over here. All right. One of the first things I want to see going back to the previous discussion is in terms of regional travel, I know that probably an TIGER II treaty that might be way off because it might take eight hours, but there are some countries where and I think that we should probably be able to make it work because personally, I can see Saint Vincent from my house. But if I have to go to Saint Vincent, I have to go up to Castries from Shousell, take a plate, pay 600, 700, 800 dollars to fly to Saint Vincent. So I think that there are some areas that it can work and probably the resources need to be found there. And as it relates to what Barry is saying about recognizing youth development, I also think that we should start having the discussion of making it easier for youth leaders from across the Caribbean to travel easier because government travel, heads of government travel and the ease in which they pass through the airports is like two seconds. But when a youth leader who basically does the same thing of representing the persons within their constituencies, the persons within their country, go through the airport, and they escape back in Trinidad and ask 15 million Westerns. In Trinidad, I think that we need to start having a discussion of making it easier for youth leaders who represent the youth in our communities to travel easier to Caribbean. I'm taking note of that. Two second niers. I don't even think it needs to be as extensive as a diplomatic passport, but making the airfares a little bit easier on our pockets because a lot of us are paying out of pocket. So yeah, I like that. Yes, we have a question right here. All right, so this is an online question. Samantha first. Shera Passan. She said what is being done after this discussion to truly impact youth development? And then a follow-up question to add to what Barry asked. Abashambha Grant Jones is saying that I agree with Samantha for Shera Passan's question. It is necessary to have a plan for youth institution in the marketplace and to value the contributions of youth entrepreneurs. Samantha is actually a CYA from Guyana. So thank you, Samantha. All right. Just to touch on briefly niers, your first comment which tied in to what Sean was saying and the forum that I mentioned in saying kits. In actually attempting the establishment of the regional ferry system, it was recognized that obviously it is somewhat impractical to let's say take a ferry from Antigua all the way down to Trinidad or Suriname. Nobody wants to spend that much time on a boat, right? However, you know, we understand that. One of the reasons why it was proposed we should still at least try to interconnect the islands that are in close proximity. Like you mentioned, Saint Vincent, I am just like you, if I step outside, I can see Saint Vincent, right? So it should be facilitated. Travel between islands in close proximity should be facilitated. However, the issue that came about in the implementation was that the small craft operators that they are consulted with, the commitment was not forthcoming. You see, the market has to be there. You have to have a demand for the service because the persons who own the ferry, more than likely have a loan to pay, or at least if not a loan. And that's why the subsidy issue, the figures are showing that it was a deficit of, I said a deficit of five million over six years, over six months. Five million US dollars deficit over six months. That's quite a deficit, right? So as close as the two islands are, Saint Vincent and Grenadines and Saint Lucia, there has to be a market for any entrepreneur to want to invest in a ferry service between the two islands. And I think what happened with the French experience is that they already had the ferries going between Guadaloupe and Marigolade. So there was a small ferry service in the French communities, that in the French islands, the saints, Marigolade, Guadaloupe that extended into Dominica, that then it went into Martinica, went into Saint Lucia, and that's how it rolled out. And then back up north. So they build out their ferry service as we go along. But we need private sector input into this thing because it's quite costly. He proposed an online question, but he got a bit overshadowed by Macalester's comments. What was the question? Can you repeat it? From Samantha, from Guyana. Yes, she was asking what can be done after this discussion to truly impact youth in the Caribbean. Well, I think the first thing that we have to do is to follow up on the, no, as far as what the secretariat can do because the issue of youth development, which she mentioned, is huge. It's huge. And what it is that we can do, I'm here as part of the secretariat, and what we can do from that standpoint is to follow up very assiduously on the recommendations that came out of the meeting in January. And to put that, start and look at the other parties, the other interested groups to put that coordination mechanism in place and to lend the voice to the CYA to allow that thing to happen. That is my commitment in terms of what we are going to do in terms of our work program on youth. Any other questions? Yes. Another question from the online platform is for a flagship program such as the Caricom Youth Ambassador, caucus, why Caricom countries are reluctant on funding such a program? I don't know that there's a regional fund that member states are being asked to put any money into. It's a matter of at the national level providing the resources at the national level. I cannot speak for the national level. I mean, but that is what it is. We don't, there's not a regional fund that everybody puts their money into and then it goes to the CYA. It doesn't work that way. I mentioned about the advocacy. I mentioned about the role that you could play and the coordinate advocacy, I think, all that would help in allowing the resources to go forward if there's value added to what is being done. I'm sure if you were to ask Mary, Ms. Wilfred, if she needed more resources in her youth test, she's gonna tell you yes. And I'm sure if you were to ask somebody else in another department, they're gonna say yes. So how do you, how do you do that? It's a national issue that every country grapples with. How do you share the limited resources you have among the many other things that you need to get back? I don't have the answer. We have a question here and then behind him. So two. Chris Lewis. Caribbean Youth Environment Network. We speak a lot about youth issues and I want to allow two, one of our issues related to climate change. Caribbean being one of the least contributed to climate change, but being one of the most, be affected. And we look at our issue mainly of waste disposal. I recently attended the Caribbean Youth International Coastal Cleanup Coordinators in Miami. And one of our main issues is that you have coordinators sitting back using time going to different stakeholders, but yet still not getting the buying of the country or the leaders that be in support of the issue. What can Cary come do when it comes to on a collective way of treating or dialoguing with the issue of climate change, especially when it comes to waste disposal? When I say waste disposal, I speak more towards with plastic. Because yes, we have some countries such as Antigua, the Bahamas, and St. Lucia just passed this agreement on law into for, we're looking at styrofoam. But the key fact is when we speak about plastic, the issue stems back on, yes we do, maybe we do collection of plastic, we want to do recycle. But what's the Caribbean and of all can we do in help mitigating that issue? Especially we as young persons, the issue is there to affect our health. And I think it's something that is critical and that needs to be addressed with regency. Can I, I appreciate your question, but if the ambassador is going to answer, I would like him to tackle it from the stance of regional integration because that is in keeping with our theme and maybe looking for sources of entrepreneurship work in, yeah. Let me separate climate change from plastic and recognize the work that the network did in the region in advocating for what the Caribbean community achieved at COP, COP 24. I think it was, it is probably one of the best examples of what a community as a community we can do if all our voices are channeled together in a unified advocacy role. And I want to commend the youth, the network and others who were in Paris, I was in Paris and I left there feeling a proud Caribbean person to see the weight that we had in these negotiations to even get mention of 1.5 in the declaration. That took hours and days and days and days of work as you know. So it shows that you can succeed when you put coordinated, channeled advocacy not only within the region, you took that and you went out with it. And it didn't just happen in Paris overnight, a number of cops that went before that. And that's a perfect example of the region singing in one voice and having a result. Now plastic, plastic is an issue, it's pollution. And I don't link it to climate change necessarily. More and more you're seeing, I think the citizens are becoming more and more aware. Globally on the fact that plastic pollution is a real problem. That needs to be resolved now, not for the future. A number of countries you've mentioned have put in place the ban of certain importation of certain single use plastics. I'm aware Sandesh just did that. And I think probably about seven or eight countries right now that have legislation if not more. And all of them are moving towards it all without exception. It's an issue that has been discussed by the environment ministers. It's an issue that has been discussed even at the trade level because obviously the persons in the community will produce plastic products and they have a right to trade their products. So it's also an issue that has been discussed at the Quartet. But I think that there is a resolve to address it. Now how do you move from, I mean banning a straw is a simple thing. Banning a straw, you can get paper straws and so on, but there are plastics that are used singly in manufacturing processes as well. And some of the leading countries in that, I think Ghana was one of the first countries in the world to ban plastics. Had to roll back some of it because they went ahead and it affected some of there. So how do you do that in a systematic way and roll it out in a way that it doesn't have any adverse effect immediate but at the long run? It's gonna be discussed at this meeting, that's what I'll say to you. It's on the agenda. Plastics. Thank you. Unfortunately, we have to take a break right now, but I want the gentleman who proposed the question, the gentleman who proposed the question to keep in mind that St. Lucia taking a step forward on banning, they banned it, right? The ban styrofoam is a peak opportunity for young people to get into some form of agro processing to be producing our own reusable way. Because I saw a program where they did it with the husk of the bananas, and we know bananas are not as thriving as they used to be here, so that could be a great alternative for us. But we're going to take a break right now, and thank you for your questions and your contributions, and thank you, Ambassador. One of the eight university recognized rights of the consumer is the right to be heard. This means that every consumer who is dissatisfied with a good or service has the right to lodge a complaint to the provider of that good or that service. This should be the first point of lodging a complaint. Ensure that the receipt, as proof of the transaction, is available. This list can contribute a small amount of gas in the space. When in TPI, we can try and do everything we can to ensure that we lower the amount of gas in our service to prevent the earth from getting hotter. It is necessary to lower the amount of gas in our service, these mitigations, to change it. And we have to change the name of the whole world of the earth, to prevent the earth from getting hotter. Exactly any cause of the earth will get hotter. This is something we can do for the children. We can do everything we can to prepare and recover for these negative consequences due to climate change. We all know how to do it. For example, we can ensure that we protect all of our plants. This is a natural way of life. The only way is to stop the damage in the cyclone and goblins. Build a channel for the people who need it. And ensure that the channel is not deserted. We can do everything we can to live in climate change. Find information about the National Government and even learn how to protect the cold and all of our citizens. Thank you for staying with us and thank you audience members for your questions. I was really impressed. They were very thought provoking and I'm sure the Ambassador has a lot to think about when he goes and lays on his bed tonight. I would like to thank him for making the trip down to St. Lucia. It shows a lot because often we meet via social media. We meet on online platforms but we never actually get to see the faces attached to the voices. And I would like to thank the ASG for being here and Miss Michelle Small Bartley for being here as well to engage with us. And I would really like to thank those of you who are online and actively participated. I know that some of your questions did not get answered but we still thank you for participating. And I hope that this event next year can be in maybe a more comfortable environment, just saying. And it will be even more fruitful than what it was today. Okay, I would like to call on our Director of Youth, Miss Mary Wilfred to do the vote of thanks. Okay, so we've come to the end of this youth dialogue with ASG LaRocque and we want to really thank the Caricom Youth Ambassadors, SB Francis and McCallister Hunt for their commitment, devotion and passion in organizing this dialogue. Arousing a round of applause, they really did excellent. Also, I would like to thank Miss Michelle Small Bartley who came on board in May and jumped right into the planning of this event together with the CYAs. We were able to coordinate and discuss and to ensure that we really deliver a good ASG life that the Caribbean young people can join along with us as well. Thank you, Secretary General. Thank you, Deputy Ambassador and all the other members of the Caricom Secretariat who are here with us today. We'd like to thank UETV for being a part of this discussion. We feel that this has gone even beyond us because when we were planning we were just thinking of just the live broadcast and the social media networks and income UETV that gave us another dimension of reaching maybe campuses and their own audience. So we really want to thank them. We'd like also to thank the staff at the Ministry of External Affairs especially Mr. Yenvel Cesar who I coordinated with and the personnel at the GIS studio they have been phenomenal walking us through this from our first-side visit to giving us information and instructions. We understand how technical this thing is but they've made it so easy and simple for us. Bravo, well done, guys. We really appreciate that. And to you, our young people from the various organizations who have straight... Some of you have just come from work. Some of you have just landed in from university and I've grabbed you in here to be a part of the audience. All of you, students, the National Youth Council, thank you for coming to this event and like somebody online asked, we hope that there are going to be some actionable things that we can deliver to our young people coming from this dialogue. Thank you. And we have a meet and greet, a small gathering, some refreshments for you after. So please join us. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Wilfred. And I really want to acknowledge the role, Ms. Wilfred played, messaging at all odd hours for information and assistance and she was very graceful in assisting us so a round of applause for her. And before you close, may I finally ask for a really round of applause for great ambassadors. That's a job of yours. That's a job. Thank you very much and good night, everyone.