 are within the Caribbean region or around the world, and welcome to the Caribbean Development Bank Youth for Innovation and Resilience Youth Fire Forum. I am Renee Atwell, Dean of the Caricum Youth Ambassador Corps, and a member of the planning committee for this forum. And I am excited to assist with sharing this dialogue today where we will engage in meaningful discourse on pertinent issues affecting Caribbean development. This is in fact one of the events on the program of activities for the CDB's 52nd Board of Governors Meeting, which is chaired by the Tix and Caicos Islands with some events being held there. Now in addition to the President's Management and staff of the CDB, we are also joined this morning by Governors and Directors from CDB's member countries, development partners, colleagues from civil society, departments of youth, and of course young persons from across the region. We would also like to give a special shout out to the Tix and Caicos Islands Department of Youth Affairs and the MATLAB, who are jointly hosting a face-to-face conversation linked to today's forum. And if you know anything about the CDB, you will know that they prioritise youth engagement, youth development, and youth participation in decision making. And as a result, this discussion today really provides the opportunity for young persons and policy makers to weigh in on issues affecting Caribbean young persons. The CDB's commitment to resilience, innovation, and youth development is clearly articulated in their policies. And so this forum really brings the pieces together. What do Caribbean young persons and development partners have to say on issues of climate change and health and on youth employability? Key issues I find by young persons such as myself as priorities. Now stay tuned to find out a little bit more after opening remarks from CDB's Vice President and Corporate Services and Bank Secretary, Mrs. Yvette Lamonaise-Seale, who has championed the importance of youth engagement at the CDB. So we're now handing over to Mrs. Lamonaise-Seale. I'm Trina Ricks-Burley. At seven years old, I had a brain aneurysm that has left my left side with limited functionality. That has a hindered this. Thank you so much, Renee. Good morning. Welcome. Welcome to the Caribbean Youth for Innovation and Resilience Youth Fire Forum. I am particularly pleased to join you for this forum with a difference. This year, a group of exceptional young leaders working at the policy and grassroots levels took the lead on conceptualizing the forum, identifying the topics for discussion, selecting resource persons and working with us in CDB to coordinate every aspect of youth fire. During consultations to identify the most pressing issues facing Caribbean youth, several considerations emerged, or youth leaders coalesced around the need to discuss strategies for one, combating youth unemployment, a vexing and chronic issue even before the COVID-19 pandemic, and two, addressing the more recent challenge of climate change with a focus on its nexus with health. Indeed, as we continue to grapple with the pandemic, which has disproportionately affected the most vulnerable and marginalized, some of our young people have been able to stay on track to achieve personal and professional goals, and others have pivoted, moving to entrepreneurship and making strides in the digital economy, yet far too many continue to face and fare an uncertain future. Some of you will know that CDB started in 1970 with a purpose to contribute to the harmonious economic growth and development of member countries in the Caribbean, and to promoting economic cooperation and integration among them. In keeping with the changing times and still within that purpose, CDB's updated strategic plan 2022 to 2024 focuses on the repositioning required within the bank and across the region to build resilience in all its forms. The bank's strategies, investments and partnerships therefore continue to evolve to support opportunities and build the capabilities of all our people to exercise their full rights to build their resilience and contribute to that of our region. Through the work of our Enhanced Vibes in Youth Outreach Program and our 2020 youth policy and operational strategy, we have increased our youth engagement and our focus on ensuring that our investments recognize, utilize and support the growth of young people's strengths. The insights our young people share today will therefore inform the direction of our investments in the areas discussed. Forests such as these create space for our youth to have a sea and serve as a springboard for action. Leaders past and present have grappled with the issues identified, yet they persist, so who better to debate the issues and more importantly identify solutions than those who are at the height of energy, curiosity, creativity and innovation and have the most to lose our youth. To the policy makers and heads of development organizations joining us today, as our young people share their perspectives, let us make the commitments and more importantly, let us act on them to create space for meaningful engagement, to position young people at the heart of the development discourse and to support the enabling environment they need to thrive. Permit me to quote Martin Luther King Jr.'s I have a dream speech of 1963. Dr. King stated, we are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today, tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action. His words, delivered in the context of the civil rights movement, are applicable when it comes to the youth development imperative. We also are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. I am sure, like me, you are eager to hear from the speakers today. We begin with interventions from Dr. Anya Malcolm Gibbs, a clinical psychologist from a Board of Governors host country, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and Mrs. Annika Ben, climate change negotiator. As a hallmark of your stage in life, I look forward to kinder from you, and of course, from all speakers during this forum, as you challenge us to act on climate change and health and on youth unemployment. Thank you for your time. In 2017, Hurricanes Irma and Maria ravaged the Turks and Caicos Islands, bringing wind, rain and category five destruction. What made it difficult for me is that despite being a clinical psychologist and expecting to deliver services, I found myself terrified while bracing for the after-effects of such devastating storms. What we came to see in the few months to follow affected our livelihood, but most importantly, our mental health. In the Turks and Caicos Islands, even though those of lower socioeconomic status were expected to be mostly affected, I believe that all citizens were deeply impacted. Electricity was interrupted. We assembled in lines at the grocery stores and the gas stations daily. Communication with the family islands, such as South Caicos and Grand Turquoise challenges, and at times felt as if they were cut off from civilization. We'd like to consider ourselves as being resilient, and this is what we had to believe in order to cope. In the aftermath of those hurricanes, many persons lost their homes and many schools were damaged. Some schools were housed temporarily in makeshift classrooms while others remained at home. Being responsible for providing mental health treatment for children across the land and breadth of the Turks and Caicos Islands, I found that anxiety was common among the younger students admitted to missing their school, many were not able to focus, and there was the obvious fear of worry for the future. All around the globe, there's the urgency to focus on climate change and mental health. For the Turks and Caicos and the region, there must be stronger efforts for integrated support with various stakeholders. Psychological first aid training and resiliency planning need to be at the forefront of intervention. Disasters and severe weather can cause PTSD, shock, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and so on. IU need to feel encouraged, have a sense of optimism and feel connected in order to mitigate the impact of climate change. Therefore, interventions need to be proactive that will assist IU, provide some relief to those of us on the front line, and prepare the population for the effects of what climate change can bring. Onika Sellingberg, a climate change negotiator and a climate change youth activist from Guyana, and it is my pleasure to make these few brief recommendations as it relates to policy changes that are essential and required within our region to help us to be resilient to the impacts of climate change on our health sector. One of the first and foremost recommendations that I must make is the integration of ICT within our data management and data collection systems. Our health care centers, our hospitals should move within the 21st century to match our cleaning periods and our paper-based records with cloud-based health systems so that should any disaster happen, it's much easier for us to bounce back where patients can be able to access their records and access their health care information even the day after an event has happened and we can provide to them the service that they require. Secondly, our ministry should work with other ministries, our health care ministries should collaborate with other ministries within our countries to ensure that health implications are included in the design of any climate change intervention. If we're building a nature park, whatever is happening, we must build it so that we provide other support for persons who may need psychosocial help, for persons who may need to go into nature to help them to cope with what is happening. We also must increase the amount of research that we're doing within the sector so we can understand how climate change will impact our physical as well as our mental health. And finally, any disaster preparedness response or support should include psychosocial support for young people in marginalized communities who are sometimes more adversely impacted by the changes that are happening in the community. Everybody deserves to have these changes and as young people we want to make our voices heard to ensure that these are some policy interventions that can be implemented. May thank you. Thank you so much for those lovely interventions and of course we are heading straight into the first panel on climate change and health and I am quite excited to introduce you guys to the moderator for the climate change on health panel, Dr. Karen Knives. Dr. Nas's lecturer within the Institute of International Relations at the University of the West Indies and has been doing research on the link between cultural industries and international trade in the Caribbean since 2008. He is also the managing director of Coral Green Limited, a firm dedicated to commercializing creative content throughout the Caribbean. And this company, sorry, currently represents the dynamic musical band known as Freighton Collective. He's also a published poet and has been a certified youth worker for the past 23 years. He holds a bachelor's degree in government with minors in history and international relations from the UWI and a master's in international law from the University of Aberdeen. I now hand you guys over to the ever so capable and competent Dr. Karen Knives. Dr. Nas, over to you. Good morning, good morning, good morning. It's a beautiful Caribbean region. We're pleased to have everyone here. We're pleased that you are here. Thank you so much, Rene, for a very, very comprehensive introduction. Thanks for those very kind words. Pleased to be a moderator here today. We're going to talk about climate change and health, which typically are not fields that people tend to put together. But I need you to imagine what you need to think with me. At the end of the day, when you think the climate change, most of us think about hurricanes. Well, we need to spend some time today thinking about the impact of those hurricanes. And today, yes, we know that people sometimes lose their lives in hurricanes. We know that sometimes people are injured. But I want you to imagine what it's like to live after that. You heard one of the interventions before from the representative from Tix and Keika speaking about that anxiety. That fear, but not going to school. Imagine being afraid of rain because you're afraid it's another powerful hurricane that could ruin your life. Today, we are going to have a really amazing discussion about climate change and how it impacts health. And we're now just going to talk about physical health because we were already established that we know that you know, people can lose their lives. We know people can get injured. But we're also going to speak about the mental health implications. I'm going to jump right in. I've asked our host today at the Kareem Development Bank to put all the bios online so that I wouldn't spend a lot of time reading them. I'm going to introduce all of our three panelists. They're all going to speak first. They're going to introduce them. They're going to speak about the topic as it relates to their work and their organization. And then I'm going to come back in and we're going to go a second time again to kind of dig deeper into the subject. And then of course what's going to happen, and this is very, very what excited, you are going to have a chance to thoroughly engage with us. So I want to encourage you from now get active in the chat. Just type in the chat. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm ready. I'm ready because first up I'm going to introduce Dr Cracey Grant who is the president of the Guy and the Youth Council. He is here with a smile on his face as he should be. Lots of guys, I can give a very long introduction but I won't. I promise the audience that I'm just going to give a brief introduction of who you are. We know you're a medical doctor. We know that you're involved in youth work on the ground in Guyana. And so you can have the floor and then after I introduce the next speaker and then I'll bring the person in after you after that. So the next three minutes are all yours. Good for it. Thank you very much Dr Niles and thank you to the team at the CBB for inviting me to be part of this panel. This is an important panel at this time in the juncture of the Caribbean in which we've just come out of the COVID-19 pandemic and some say that we're entering into endemicity in which we will be seeing COVID around for a long time. And these discussions need to be had and should continue. And as Dr Niles mentioned I like the interesting twist that was made in terms of the linkage between climate change and health. And usually when we think about health and health care and when we think about the person who is ill we limit that person to a disease. So it's whether they have chicken pox or whether they have dengue fever or whether they have malaria or whether they have tuberculosis or whether they have hypertension the chronic disease or diabetes. We link a person to a disease but we forget that that person is a whole person. That person is not only makeup of a physical component but has a biopsychosocio component all intertwined that makes up that person. And so we usually refer to patients as organisms as a whole of a biopsychosocio organism. And so we have to remember this as we link health to climate change and we cannot take the person out of the environmental context in which that person lives, the geographical location, the space in which that person is in. And we can take from the environment those organisms that live in the environment. So we have to see the environment and human beings as interlinked as living harmoniously together. And so the health of the environment would affect the health of the organisms that live in the environment and the health of the organisms which make up the human beings in the environment would affect the health of the environment. And so therefore as we strive for environmental sustainability as we strive to leave the environment better than we have it now for future generations we have to remember that climate change also have an impact on our health not only our physical health causing physical diseases. So currently in Guyana we're experiencing some flooding and with flooding we have risk for diseases such as leptospirosis we have the vector-borne diseases we have diseases that are linked to hygiene and so that makes up the physical aspect that can make a person ill. But also we have the mental health issues that the person would go through because of the flooding they will have to think about displacement. If their homes are flooding they will have to move out. They become as one previous presenter mentioned anxious and fearful not certain of the future not certain of tomorrow. And so we have that mental health aspect and in our interventions we only have not only think about the physical but we also have to think about the mental health aspect as we address persons. And then we have to look at the the the relationships the social aspect if that person is displaced where would they live? Would they live in a place usually in our interventions we put people persons who are displaced in shelters whether displacement due to earthquakes or hurricane or flooding we put them in shelters but we have to ensure that when we put them in shelters or we put them in a temporary location that they maintain their relationships with those loved ones that would affect their mental health and so we have to in our interventions move persons in families move persons in close networks close family ties so that they can be familiar with the persons who are wrong and that will affect their their mental health. So these are the some of the considerations as we think about climate change and we think about health remember that if we talk about climate change we have to remember health and when we talk about health we not only think about the diseases that can affect the body but we can affect that that disease that can affect the the psyche of the person and and affect the emotional health of the person and the social health of the person. So we have to look at the person as a whole and not as only a biological being. So we are off to an amazing start Ladies and gentlemen we're seeing you in the chat lighting it up keep doing that Trinidad Tobago takes and gives us Barbados Bahamas we see you we're going to keep going we want to welcome Ms. Jamilia Sili to this chat and also we're going to bring in immediately Dr. Colin Young but we're going to start with Jamilia really great to have you and then following you we're going to have Dr. Colin Young from what we call the 5Cs Jamilia from the Caribbean youth environment that will take it away. Hi good morning everyone and thank you Karon and also Chrissy for your for your words I definitely think that you may have touched on most points really as related to climate change and health so I'm just a little bit about the Caribbean Youth Environment Network it has been going for nearly 30 years and it generally works to empower young people to be able to tackle environmental and also sustainable development issues not only in their countries but in their communities and also in the region and of course through many activities like education and awareness activities lobbying participation and research we have been part of many climate change activities such as participating in the UN climate change conferences hosting beach cleanups being part of national, regional, international climate change campaigns and actually this week we're having a climate action week which includes a jingle podcast and being on the calling program in Barbados brass tacks. Now regarding climate change and health we need to know that climate change is a cross-cutting issue it's not just something that the environment world has to tackle it affects every single person in many different ways and of course Chrissy Tacks spoke about physical impacts regarding like hurricanes and stuff like that last year I experienced my first hurricane hurricane also in Barbados and I just got a little taste of it where we I had no electricity for for five days and to me that was devastating but I know I didn't lose my house I didn't lose my life or I didn't lose any limbs I didn't lose any family members but it still impacted me somewhere so I can just imagine how people in vulnerable situations like those disabled people those with chronic illnesses such as myself those elderly people children how they will be affected and then lastly people that that their livelihoods depend on the weather that depend on environmental resources and I can never forget the biodiversity that we will have in our country so will that be impacted and of course how that impact would impact on us who depend on on those resources to live yeah thank you so much for sharing and even what you said about chronic illnesses honestly we're going to touch on what touch on that a bit later that actually almost made my pause views a little bit um I think that was a really important point to make and again more than you're more than an illness right as dr. Granthad you're a person and we need to think of everyone involved in this way let's bring in the final panelist Dr. Colin Young um from the Caribbean community climate change center executive director um so we really are privileged to have you here um for the next three minutes are yours and that's it good morning viewers and listeners and thank you Kiron it's been a pleasure and and to the cdb for having this facilitating this very important forum the five C's as we are known is a carricom institution that is mandated to coordinate the region's response to climate change and we do that too through a number of of services that we provide to the region one of which is ensuring that Caribbean specific data uh is being collected and analyzed to help influence decision making at the and policies at the member states level and another way we do that is through working with the member states in carricom to access resources uh to help our people adapt to the effects of of climate change and so you know we've always been saying that climate change is an existential threat to those of us who live in small islands like those of us in the Caribbean and no lying states but it is also known that climate change also represents the greatest health threat uh to our to our people in the region and globally in fact some 3.6 billion people across the world are highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change and so for example I was very pleased to hear Onika from from Guyana indicating the role for example of ICT in helping our member states adapt to to changing climates especially and informing health systems and for example the center currently is working with the Bahamas and Trinidad and Tobago implementing a green climate fund project that is looking at how do we develop a climate resilient health system in the Bahamas and similar similarly in the in Trinidad and and Tobago so for example in in the Bahamas one of the deliverables from that project is going to be an electronic public health surveillance system that will improve the efficient monitoring and management of health issues amplified by climate change because we will hear about some of these in a bit in terms of the incidence of cholera the incidence of dengue incidence of malaria that tend to accompany the floods that are increasing in both frequency and intensity and similarly as it relates to the disasters and early warning systems that will help our policy makers to be able to better adapt to the effects of climate change I just want to briefly also set the stage here a little bit that our region is one of the most vulnerable regions in the world we are at the front line of the of the war of climate change and the climate crisis we feel it we experience it we live it some of our people are fearful of it some of our people have lost families they've lost loved ones and as bad as that is all of the projections are saying that it's going to be worse it's going to get worse the frequency and intensity of floods of droughts of powerful category four and five hurricanes are going to increase and not just sequentially what is happening now is that these hazards are happening in parallel they're happening at the same time and so it's stressing our health systems our ability to cope on the mental health side on the physical side and so really this conversation is absolutely vital because as a region we have to grapple on how are we going to deal with this the center is here to help countries access resources to try our best to adapt to the effects of climate change wow excellent so so he just he just actually said to the who's on my mouth right so what we've seen right now all these and gentlemen is that the the findings of the intergovernmental panel on climate change which leads scientific research on this on this issue is now said not only are we in a quote-unquote hot spot for climate change impacts but that it is where we need to be prepared for it to get worse and worse because action is too slow right um will you definitely i don't know that at another time we're definitely going to be talking about action and what you can do um but we want to zero in here now on what some of these specific impacts are that that persons may not be aware of in terms of climate change and health as you relate to what we do so we're going to take the speakers in the same order crazy you can go then jamedia and then um dr yong again so crazy and by the way i'm seeing the chat coming in i'm seeing the messages coming in hello greenader great to have you as well hello please great to have you and also someone from from the uk um crazy you want to take it away but so the impacts of climate change and health of course the impact would span not only the physical component to the person but the mental mental health aspect and the emotional or social aspect and so we have to ensure that our interventions reach all those components and you know we focus a lot on information we focus a lot on awareness and i know that the national youth council we mobilize our young people to help our constituents to be more resilient in health and that was one of our projects that we implemented with funding from pahua WHO to have a more resilient community in the context of COVID-19 especially in the area of mental health when the young people were adjusting to self-isolation and quarantine and staying at home and so the role of information the role of awareness the role of debunking myths and misconceptions misinformation concerning health and climate change cannot be underscored however i think that our interventions should move towards implementation research we should be seeing what is working in our Caribbean region we know that our Caribbean region is very vulnerable and as one speaker said before probably things would not get better things will get worse and so we want to know what are the best practices that will work in the Caribbean and that can only be fueled by implementation or operational research yes we can have academic research on for example on in the case of Guyana where we have malaria and we have the Nuffalese mosquito causing this to be a public health threat we can have academic research on the the biology of the mosquito and it's flying patterns it's feeding patterns and so forth but we could also extend a little further what are those interventions those activities that will work to combat malaria in our setting and how can it be improved how we can tweak those research to ensure that we have evidence-based interventions to combat climate change and health excellent excellent excellent Gimiria hi yes i do agree especially with the research we need a lot of our baseline data to be readily available for persons to use especially those persons who are doing for instance masters thesis disease we also need to in fact now we can do little things i would say just for the the regular people we can do little things to combat certain effects such as the increase in temperature you can change what you wear in the Caribbean i don't think that we really need to be wearing jackets and all that in order to look professional i went to Sri Lanka once and i think that that was hot and the people there they they were they wore like the thinnest kind of clothes that you can never see in order to combat that heat i will say here we can try something different like wearing different clothes so there's just simple little things make sure you drink more water when it comes to to avoid heat stress i've realized that in september now it's getting extremely hot instead of cooling down it seems to be continuation of summer so in that case hopefully you can find a way outside of using air conditioning because i tried using like two fans and have all my windows open at night and that still didn't work so you just have to find find different ways to do things we have to have to be as innovative and creative as possible last year at the climate change conference i heard of a young lady from Madagascar she created a soap that didn't need water in order to be used because of the covid pandemic and water quality and water supply issues so this these are so many things that that we can think of and lastly for mental health talk to somebody that is my my main advice to people that is to talk to somebody don't keep it in we need to get out of that phase of oh let's keep it to ourselves it's not going to help you talk to a psychologist a friend pastor priest whoever you need to speak to write it down um do some self-care make sure that you schedule and for those who are heavily scheduled schedule in some time for yourself make sure that you go to the beach if you can do something that you enjoy and that is relaxing to you to make sure you take a break from the hustle and bustle and don't burn out yourself i've done it before i've completely burned out myself and it was hard to get back to a stage where i wanted to work again so my advice is to do something that you extremely like enjoy and that's that's my advice so thank you so much for that we're going to get into uh some i understand that dr yang has some research to share with us as well as some further insight into the the work that is that he's currently engaged in um jimmy i might come back to you as well because i might be at that survey that you wanted to share about as well um but dr yang thank you kiran and uh indeed you know we have a saying at the center that you know climate change is everything um because really when you're hearing the conversation today it's really cross cutting it impacts every fast set of our lives on an everyday basis and for example the heat waves and the heat stress that jamila was talking about the farmers and the construction workers are already complaining about how hot it is to be working on in the hot sun and so we see the average temperatures increasing and getting warmer and so the incidences of heat stress and heat strokes um are rising not just across the caribbean but across the across the world climate change threatens our food security because when you have floods and you have droughts you're impacting food and when you impact food there's a direct relation with health in terms of malnutrition and the impact that malnutrition can continue to have on on especially young people and the vulnerable populations when we talk about uh the complications around pregnancy that comes from these very hot temperatures and all of the impacts on disasters another connection with with climate change it is well known that there is strong links between air pollution that comes from forest fires and the burning of fossil fuels and health in fact the world health organization as this says that this air pollution is one of the single largest threat to human health because of of climate climate change so you're talking about increased incidences of diabetes bone disease lung cancer 21% of all stroke related deaths in the U.S. are blamed on climate change in fact one doctor indicated that he thinks that climate change of as a secondary diagnosis to a lot of the the complications that he is seeing I want to talk because of the trauma I I had one of my staff from St. Lucia just the other day who gave a presentation as the mistress of ceremonies and during that presentation she started to cry because it made her remember the impact of the disaster in St. Lucia by losing a couple of her friends to a natural disaster that was climate so the trauma and the mental health and the psychosocial impacts from these disasters is absolutely key and unfortunately as a region we do not undertake the type of research to understand the impact that climate change is having on our young people on the mental health side so that we can design the kind of psychosocial support that will be needed and so I want to share in about 45 seconds or so one of the largest studies that was done 10 countries 10,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 25 and it was really looking at at what are some of the effects of on their mental health and some startling numbers came out of that one is that across all of these 10 countries 59 percent of all of those interviewed were extremely worried about the effects of climate change 84 percent were moderately worried and more than 50 percent reported emotions of sadness anxiety angriness powerlessness helplessness and guilt 45 percent of them said their feelings about climate change negatively impact their daily lives and their functioning 75 percent said that they think the future is frightening 40 percent said that they're wondering if they should be having children to bring children in a world where the climate impacts are going to be even worse than no no obviously this concern this this anxiety and hopefully can lead to some type of activism as well where young people can start to demand more of their political leaders but what it demonstrates is that we have to in the region try to get a handle of what are the effects that there are young people and the vulnerable people are suffering from so that we can design our health systems to be able to accommodate and these these emerging mental health issues obviously on the physical side you know we have to be looking at how we design our health systems both from the actual infrastructure and make them more climate resilient to deal with multiple hazards at the same time if we have a critical population at the hospital and there's a disaster coming how do we ensure that we maintain power and electricity and and care for our populations during the the disasters that are sure to come. Jamila talked about you know Hurricane Elsa in Barbados let us think for one second what our colleagues and friends in Dominica suffered when Hurricane Maria hit them in 2017 and destroyed 225 percent of their GDP the whole rebuilding the whole psychosocial impact and the trauma associated with that we should never underestimate how important that is and here's another scary statistic according to the United Nations the requests for humanitarian aid for natural associated with natural disasters have increased by 800 percent from 2000 this is just published data and and here's the other kicker of all of the requests for humanitarian aid linked to natural disasters the international community only provides for every two dollars they only provide one dollar 50 percent so imagine then what that other 50 percent is going through when their basic needs for clothing for clean water for for healthcare and access are not being met this is going to get worse so this conversation about how we can as a region as governments within the region as the young people like who are with us everybody all hands on deck what is it that we can be doing differently to help our people adapt to the worsening and intensifying impacts of climate change excellent the question now that most of the viewers would be asking would be so what now we present a lot of facts we present a lot of data I know I'm going to make space a little bit for Jimi I know if you still want to share that piece of data you might have as well from your own survey but I want to encourage persons to get involved in the chat because we are seeing your comments coming through this is a perfect time for you to get involved in conversation I'm going to be asking somebody about some of those comments so but just before I do that Jimi was there anything you wanted to add there or yes go ahead yes Karon just one thing just recently in the last weekend the CYN in Barbados did a survey on climate justice and not just with youth but for everyone from 13 years and up and from what I've seen only 21.5% of the 300 persons that were surveyed noted that health that they thought that health was an impact of climate change so I believe that maybe they're not as aware of the impacts it might not include mental health as an issue so that is one thing that I guess we would all need to work on and just a quick thing there are different ways that we can raise awareness not only just on social media or such but I think we should see things from the eyes to sorry from through the eyes of artists so for instance the mainstream environment in Barbados right now is doing a virtual art exhibition and it's for it was for world biodiversity day but you can go and see on biodiversity.gov.bb online or biodiversity.bb and you'll see through the eyes of artists how nature is seen and not just with painting and sculptures but all different types of media so that was just another way to how you can raise awareness because everyone might not just react from someone standing up and saying oh here's some stuff about climate change or here's some stuff about the environment but people might react to what they see in art. Listen I mean you I think you're only money there I also think that you've kind of highlighted the fact that we may need to talk about this even more in the future I want to encourage everyone listening to please put your questions specifically in the chat I'm going to be putting from those questions that you are asking in the chat directly to our panellists we have a few questions already in so I'm going to but I have already seen comments in in the chat about the suitability of our of our shelters and I think Dr. Yonntoucher and that briefly in terms of our ability to adapt but also there's a lot of comments coming in as well about the emotional and the emotional and I think psychological impact of these disasters as well so the two questions I'm going to bring in immediately the two questions are what are the good practices that young people are are there any good practices I was really harsh to phrase that that young people can use to really integrate climate change climate change and health into their adaptation efforts like personally like in terms of when when a young person thinks about climate change and their own health what can they do that's number one and the second question is I see a question here how can we strengthen our disaster management this is from Isaac and Bhagwan how can we strengthen our disaster management agencies to be more responsive to and accommodate this emerging issue of climate change I'm going to throw that one at Dr. Yonntoucher the other question in terms of how young persons can actually really think about their own health in terms of in the terms that we're speaking of today I'm going to throw at Jamila and Quacy so Jamila and Quacy you go first and then Dr. Yonntoucher you can go after I won't take as many questions as possible so if you can keep your responses Big W or something keep go go for it okay all right so for me I believe that the first thing that we should do as young people is to learn more about climate change see what it is and from reputable sources like the five C's the climate change community the Caribbean climate change community center I hope I got that right yeah from the five feet five feet of a mental panel on climate change from sources such as the Caribbean Youth and Rebel Network who would make sure that you get it in a way that you could could really understand from a youth perspective from your teachers stuff like that get the knowledge first and then stuff that I said before like like when you feel that it's really really hot make sure that you drink water change what you wear and as well as their NEMO organization so that when there is a disaster coming whether it's rain just rainfall and an intensive precipitation event where it's going to be a hurricane all the persons who are responsible for coordinating the disaster response are seeing the same information and then they're able to get that information out to the public in a timely way it is well known that the better our early warning systems are it actually saves lives because the NEMO can then advise people of where to move and when to move and where to go now I have to say that for some of our small islands like at Dominica for example when the hurricane is as big as a hurricane Maria unfortunately there's very little there's no place to go and so the quality of our of our hurricane shelters you know are a serious issue because if you can't stay at home and you can't go to a shelter that is going to withstand the hurricane category five then it shows the danger that we are in in terms of the the region another way we can deal with this is to look at the critical infrastructure that needs to remain online during these disasters the center is currently working with the government of Barbados with a 45 million dollar project funded by the green climate fund to improve the water resilience the water sector resilience in Barbados and and what this does is that Barbados has three water pumping stations when there is a natural disaster and the electricity grid is cut off water is not being pumped because Barbados is flat and if you when when you're flat water doesn't move on its own so you need energy and what this project did is that we provide solar PV systems to back up the water pumping stations so that in the event there's a disaster that knocks out the grid there's still power to power the water pumping stations so that Barbadians can get access to water there's also a small micro turbine back up to the solar PV so what I'm saying here is that once we look at our critical infrastructure health water and access to critical health care facilities let us see how we can improve the resilience of those by using data to impact climate change and then the basic things like access to the flood maps understanding where flooding is likely to occur having the building codes in place having the flood map so that populations are not settling in areas that we know are extremely vulnerable to climate change NCDs is an absolutely persistent problem in the Caribbean some of them are exacerbated by the effects of climate change and we do need to to figure out ways in terms of how to again not only on the health side in terms of the treatment and the support but also in terms of of getting a better sense of how climate change is exacerbating some of these NCDs yeah honestly this has been a tremendously informative panel and we've had an amazing time I want to thank Dr Grant I want to thank the city I want to thank Dr Young I want to thank all of you for coming out we have way more questions than we have time to answer because there's another amazing panel about to happen about user employment and employability in the 21st century just up after after this one but I want to make sure that I take the time as we wrap to acknowledge the tremendous work already ongoing and also to to recognize the comments being made in in the chat right now please keep the comments going as the event keeps going we didn't have enough time to answer all of the questions but we have noted them thank you so much for your time thank you so much for being involved and for being engaged and stick with us please stay on online as we move seamlessly into the next panel which is going to be about employability in the 21st century thank you so much for being with us good morning once again everyone and welcome to the second panel discussion for the Caribbean Development Bank Youth Fire Forum on Youth Employability once again I am Rene Atoah Dean of the Caribbean Ambassador Corps assisting with the planning and execution of this wonderful youth fire forum now as a youth leader working with young persons and youth organizations throughout the Caribbean what we have realized is that one of the most pressing issues affecting young persons is unemployment fair of the future and required employability skills will amongst many of those issues that young persons identify as critical and of course the challenge of building back better post COVID-19 will have to address how young persons are engaged to secure a future of work. Policy emphasis will be required to ensure that young persons with particular emphasis on women, girls, persons with disabilities, indigenous youth, youth from migrant communities and others who are disproportionately affected by the labour market are included in reshaping this landscape. I am eager to hear from the panelists and both making interventions on the topic of youth employability so it's up for the youth I invite you to listen to interventions from four young persons with whom I am particularly pleased to share it with to the Amy, Katrina, Obrina and Ariela so over to these interventions I am Katrina Riche-Burley at seven years old I had a brain aneurysm that has left my left side with limited functionality that has a hindered this disabled lady though I'm a cyclist I do 5ks yes you heard correctly through family support experience in school and personal drive I have overcome a lot I am among the over one billion disabled persons across the world who all have different experiences this is so brain when you consider that having a disability affects many opportunities including access to education and even we are persons with disabilities do access education the quality of education and training may be questionable we also often experience discrimination and marginalization for many persons with disabilities this means that it is an uphill battle to get the knowledge skills and competencies to enter the job market maintain jobs or start businesses yeah there are a lot of challenges for us as disabled people change must occur at all levels of society where we recognize that everyone is different and learn to appreciate this difference and encourage each other time is limiting so I will share a few recommendations on employability and employment firstly education and training we have to start early and start right persons with disabilities need to benefit from inclusive education it is not just about accessible school buildings but about teaching and curricula and even outdoor areas and back home facilities all students must be comfortable and safe even those that are disabled importantly a focus on social and emotional learning is a must for inclusive schools in this way all students learn how to set goals manage emotions and feel empathy also programs delivering financial scientific and digital literacy must be designed so that students with special education needs must benefit vision hearing our mobility issues should not mean that persons either to learn new skills or left out or abandoned there has been progress but we have a long long way to go still my name is Uprina Wicom I'm a 17-year-old resident from Mubatruna, Nantabago I'm currently enrolled at Bronx University College with swing and associative science degree in public health I want to make a contribution to the world sector and strengthen support for mental health care institutional practices and policies I'm also a graduate of the new entrepreneurial program and photography and digital art program that the Eastport Spain Development Company Limited these courses have caused me to increase my professional skills widen my network and build my confidence in the workplace young people have the diversity of new talents and skills we need a society and economy that allows young people to explore their individuality and bring their new talents to the workplace a lot of young people are particularly interested in developing innovative ideas in the online space we need to invest in their capacity to develop their ideas to reality this involved ensuring and enabling environment access including capacity development and financial resources to help young people participate in the formal economy when young people realize their agency and become active participants in society they discover themselves in the process and they contribute to a wider development of the nation I am Amy Francis a member of the Kalinago community in Dominica and an advocate for equity and empowerment and Kalinago inclusion in development programming and policy making I am the founder of Nannity Foundation this foundation supports young children in need within the Kalinago territory to meet some of the basic needs and ensure access to education supplies if children are prepared to take in education offered it helps with gaining education and skills they need in the long run I believe if given the proper foundation these same children can move mountains the Kalinago people have a rich history of adapting and resilience and make significant contributions to society yet still we face experiences of stigma and discrimination that impacts access to resources and opportunities this affects employability and decent work I have some key recommendations in terms of youth employability one scale up programs that improve literacy basic literacy as well as financial scientific and digital literacy and integrate indigenous knowledge and skills in education so that there is a clear link between our rich heritage and skills needed for the 21st century to support more and longer term programs within the Kalinago community that focuses on our heritage and identity this can create a strong foundation for Kalinago youth to recognize their worth and value their contributions in a way that helps them achieve personal goals and decent work opportunities three ensure that development policies and programs including these for education and the labor market are based on principles of equity and inclusion so that the most vulnerable and marginalized can fully participate and improve their well-being implement interventions that address stigma and discrimination that affect day-to-day interactions and opportunities any focus on employability and the skills needed must recognize that matters of identity are closely linked with access and outcomes and address deep-rooted issues that impact development thank you my name is Ariella Mizzak I am an assistant financial controller entrepreneur church minister and a community volunteer well all day long I am a child of God wife and the mother of the cutest one year old I am a millennial with dual nationality Dominican and Turks and cacus allender destiny brought me to the Turks and cacus at eight years old and I graduated top of my class with an associate's degree in business studies and although I wasn't able to secure scholarship with God's help in a resilient spirit I saw it in the banking and financial sector I am so pleased to know that youth employability is a priority area in this year's forum and most importantly that there is a recognition that different groups of young people face different challenges it is not a level playing field anywhere as a church minister and frequent volunteer I sometimes meet high school graduates who have significant literacy gaps and are immensely grateful to be assisted with simple tasks like constructing their resumes this includes young immigrants who desire to work but may lack the confidence and know-how to even submit their job applications and also while acquiring a new language this means that even as we discuss employability in 21st century skills these young people are at a disadvantage there is therefore a need for more support in core literacy and numeracy skills and greater attention in areas like communication and collaboration I also have a specific recommendation for my growing and diverse nation and here I am simply piggybacking on someone else's brilliant suggestion our beautiful Turks and cacus residents can benefit from tea bed schools or community centers that extend the exit readiness program the public schools often rush and compress into a career week exercise now allow me to pause and reflect on my journey you will recall my dual nationality while I have had success each day I often encounter barriers and prejudice for simply being an immigrant this is the same for others in my island across the region and globally inclusive societies are healthy societies integration is important for self actualization for fostering innovation and to contribute to a stronger economy while I encourage policymakers and development organizations to do more to close the 21st century skill gaps I urge you to do so in an equitable way in this way we all benefit thank you now that was some powerful call to actions from young citizens across the region business working with business with disabilities business working with indigenous communities and migrants and of course we are excited to get into this panel discussion on youth employability and I have the distinct pleasure of introducing the moderator for this panel Ms. Traceyanna Ramkeson Ms. Ramkeson is a banker by the working with the current citizens calling group limited to the past seven years and wears a store of hats by afternoon night and weekend these include being a business continuity associate a degree holder from the UWI in international relations academia in enterprise risk management project management leadership and management industrial relations and OSHA at 28 years old she's currently pursuing her master's degree in disaster risk management and climate governance on scholarship from the OAS helping people and the environment is her true passion she supports environmental causes such as a party certified advanced diver and is an avid volunteer with the ODPM Trinidad and Tobago she's also a certified shelter manager she believes in the process of fairness equality and equity in the workplace and is an active member of the banking insurance and general workers union not only in her workplace but also at the level of the PIGWU youth committee it is at the youth committee level that she continues to advocate for the rights and development of the youth population ages 18 to 35 within her union and by extension throughout the country so I am happy to introduce you guys to Ms. Ramkisman as she moderates this final discussion on youth employment hello Rene good morning and thank you so much for that extraordinary introduction remind me to ask you to introduce me everywhere I go so thank you very much for that and you know from what I can see here we have quite a number of calls to action from our interventionist social learning inclusivity capacity building adaptability resilience and more support for youth in literacy so good morning hello coming welcome to today's panel discussion on youth employability today we will continue to focus on youth skills required for 24th century jobs technology structural barriers and focus on the true power of our region and its greatest resource being its people and young people to be specific so today's session promises to be riveting as we have three powerhouse panelists who are have a quite a list of accomplishments under their belt and they are here just for you to discuss matters that you think are important answer the questions that you have and as we say in Trinidad and Tobago how to get a walk so it gives me absolute pleasure to introduce to you this mountain of a woman Miss Keithlin Karoo a rural woman first and foremost advocate and changemaker in the field of gender equity in agriculture and local development and signature she is also an Ashokra fellow and a Queens award recipient for humanitarian services as well as the founder of Helen's daughters wow what a woman welcome Keithlin so happy to have you here today representing and presenting also welcoming to a virtual stage is Mr. Malcolm Wells CEO of Dynamic Enterprise working with his team in Guyana to make prosthetics a more affordable option he is also the VC of the Caribbean Regional Youth Council a clinical physiotherapist a startup consultant with a background in youth entrepreneurship I mean these are definitely the kind of people that you want to hear from because they've done so much and without further ado coming the screen near you Mr. Nicholas Key who is an expert in technology and climate very apt for today's environment and our discussions he is a tech community lead with experience in running social entrepreneurial programs in the area of technology for youth and also teaching youth how to expand in digital space so to my panelists today welcome welcome welcome I am just going to jump right in because I know we have a lot to cover so Keithlin hello how are you tell us what you do tell us why you do it thanks so much Tracey Ann and similar to your previous comments I wish you could introduce me everywhere I go it's really a pleasure to be on this panelist on this panel and just to give you a short background as you said I'm a rural woman who's sent foremost I believe that everything starts with food and with agriculture and then all else follows I founded and they usually have to go through that we don't typically think about and also on a wider scale I believe that Caribbean resilience whether it's in agriculture or climate change is very underrepresented and also I think that our voices are quite silent on the global scale and this is in a sense my small way of trying to change that narrative and the reason I did that was because I like I said I come from a rural community was able to get into the UN straight after graduate school I was never pushed into agriculture at all I was working in peacekeeping in Africa political affairs at one point and then finally advisor to the president of the general assembly on climate change issues but consistently I always felt that the Caribbean was underrepresented and I also felt that in issues of agriculture women particularly we had an indigenous woman previously our representation particularly Caribbean women was there was a huge lacking and finally I felt that the solutions that would be being presented for our islands for our countries in general came from the top down and particularly in climate change and agriculture we had the solutions already here indigenously but for some reason they just were not on a wider scale so for me it's really trying to one create avenues and spaces for women to earn more to be to believe in themselves particularly in that sector two to make agriculture sexy again and three to create avenues and spaces for social entrepreneurs like myself that are not only trying to achieve a better region a better world but also trying to create money for persons that are in those marginalized populations and those sectors thank you so much well I just have to say Katelyn when I grow up I want to be just like you I have to say that and what I want to find out though because you seem to have quite a lot of experience my question is based on that experience and your observation I know you've given some of it already but I want to find out from you what are some of the employability skills that you think are required for working in the 21st century I will say that first and foremost the employability skills is very different from 30 40 years ago previously before we wanted to just secure an eight to five job that had a good pension and you know good benefits and so on and literally we're in a world now where we need to create opportunities for ourselves and I will always push entrepreneurship first and foremost secondly I think in the world of entrepreneurship requires two things grit persistence and also the ability to pivot for us at Helen's daughters the pandemic actually wasn't a challenge it became an opportunity because again we had consistently realized globally that food security was going to be an issue we eat every day we need to eat every day and these are the types of things that I believe as Caribbean young leaders we need to literally have our air to the ground and understand the current trends the ongoing trends even with the Ukrainian and Russian war look at the trade disruptions that most likely will be impacting our region it hasn't started yet and food will be that food in a sense will be a luxury so there are we need to pay attention to niche markets I know that several of my previous colleagues here with prosthetics and also technology these are things that need to be indigenous solutions we need to create these solutions from our own region because we lose more when we consistently rely on external experts rather than upskilling ourselves and finally I would say to young persons it's that yes you can get a degree you can get a graduate degree PhD whatever it is but the internet is a world of things you can become a master of many things using simple things at your fingertips from Wikipedia to YouTube to the million and one webinars that are available now so I would say instead of spending hours and hours of time on social media and TikTok and so on to actually try to balance that with upskilling yourselves in whatever niche market you've found all right thank you very much Keith and those were excellent points so great and resourcefulness and making sure that we integrate what we have in our power in the region is very important and on that topic I would like to ask Mr Malcolm Wills tell us because you are you are Mr Entrepreneur so tell us what has led you down this path you know tell us more about this okay good morning everyone and thanks again for that introduction Tracia so as you would have introduced my name is Malcolm Wills if I'm to share a little bit about my innovation or entrepreneurial journey I would say that it would have started at a very young age I was always interested in business tech science medicine and those fields and I feel like all of those would have combined to influence my current career path as both a medical professional and also as an innovator so over the years I would have tried and failed as well at a lot of entrepreneurial ventures and I just want to put that point out there that especially to young people because you know a lot of times we feel stuck demotivated or sometimes we feel that whatever we're working on you know it's not working out but I want to put a point out there to keep trying because the entrepreneurial journey is not just an overnight thing but it's a process that you need to work on so a turning point for me while I was pursuing my academic studies at the University of Guyana I would have had the opportunity to attend and participate in the global entrepreneurship program that was at the University of Massachusetts in Boston and it was there I believe again the vast amount of knowledge as well as practical experience and really understanding what is the entrepreneurial process the innovation process drafting business models and the whole startup process and interestingly enough while I was there on campus there was a group that was working on 3D printed prosthetics and back home myself and colleague while we were in the clinic we would have realized that in Guyana there's an issue in terms of persons not being able to afford prosthetics these are amputees and also the time in which it takes to gather the materials to make prosthetics so we would have looked at an alternative form of technology that could complement that and we came across 3D printing so during the opportunity that I had at that exchange I was able to network with those persons exchange information and also build our capacity back home so for me just like I said before the entrepreneurial journey it's not just an overnight thing but it's something that you need to continuously work on. Thank you so much Malcolm so just to hear you loud and clear what are some of the competencies that you think would have eaten you along the way? Okay personally I believe in terms of for anyone that's looking to get into the entrepreneurial space there's certain things that you need to focus on certain skills that you need to possess in order to be successful. The first for me is commitment to research you have to do a lot of research you have to spend a lot of time trying to understand your target your audience, studying your competitors, studying your product so research is actually 80 to 90 percent of the work. Secondly getting aligned with training programs that complement your field or interests so if it is that okay you're interested in the innovation field in terms of fintech which is a big field right now if you're interested in beauty cosmetic you know try to find courses etc that will complement your knowledge or aid in the growth of your knowledge in those fields. Third networking and making meaningful connections so if it is that you know this is a field that you're looking to explore these are products you're looking to invest in you know try to make friends try to connect with persons that are also in the same field. Networking trust me is one of the biggest parts of business and also growing your entrepreneurial journey so try to build some strong meaningful networks that you're able to communicate and share information with and lastly I'd probably say strategic partnerships so you're going to need funding you're going to need to exchange if it's opportunities etc with other persons so you need to find who are these people that you can connect with in order to share that information in order to benefit from them as well as them benefiting from you so strategic partnerships is also important. Thank you so much Malcolm so to the participants you heard him loud and clear make sure and get on LinkedIn follow our panelists get involved share content and speaking about making connections and looking at your environment and horizon scanning Nicholas hi good morning how are you I just want to ask you were able to look at your environment and identify the need for expansion in the digital space and my question to you is this what sparked your passion in technology it was really truly just curiosity good morning again everyone but essentially I started I've been in the space for about 15 years now 15 16 I started coding at around 12 and what initially I guess push me in that direction was just pure curiosity I was just curious about building things curious about wanting to see how things work and that propelled me down the direction and the path which I'm still following today okay great and with respect to some of the skills as it relates to technology and closing the digital gap what would you say to our participants and the young people anyway are some of the skills that they would need right yeah so especially today we're no longer living in a I guess a hyperanalog world it's it's extremely digital and that that prospect has essentially been accelerated because of the pandemic and so I think at a base level getting a better understanding of how technology works and how it works in different industries we'll get to a very far away beyond that you can go further down the digital literacy stack of of course learning how to code maybe not necessarily to to learn how to code to become a software or engineer but more so learning how to code to understand how the technology works at a deeper level so that you can have the ability to interact with those who actually build the technology further down the stack of course means that you're looking at different types of technologies and looking deeper into niches that you might find interesting so from augmented reality to artificial intelligence mixed reality cyber security and things revolving and surrounding UX or UI design which is user experience and user interface design towards product management and product development thank you very much Nicholas one of our interventionists actually mentioned creating a space and ensuring that education actually begins to assist in filling the gaps and tell me based on your experience what would be a way to fill some of those gaps employability wise well a few things if we're taking if we're taking the approach of first principles we first have to come to a decision on what exactly digital literacy looks like for our specific Caribbean context and that unfortunately has not been standardized and so starting from there we can then begin to accurately measure the extreme rates of digital literacy from the low to the high end spectrum to then be able to assess okay which pockets and which categories of demographic can be started into different aspects of training and where they might be best suited to then be able to extrapolate from that same from that same vantage point what people might be curious about you don't necessarily want to force skills per se you want to ensure that everything becomes very organic or to have you'll essentially have a very frustrated employability this yeah and thank you so much and in Keith Lenz introduction I know we spoke well you spoke a bit about you know coming into your own and not being forced into this piece tell me what would you think or what would be your suggestions on how we can begin to close the employability gaps I think first and foremost and I'm in this actually comes from a comment that I just noticed from Joseph talking about the fact that a lot of young persons when they're trying to get jobs a lot of they get turned away because they lack experience and one of the things that I learned early on was that sometimes we wait until we leave school to get experience and one of the things I kind of learned early on was to get a job whether it was an internship whether it was something of a firm or an NGO that I felt that I really aligned with and sometimes you will not make money from that I I had worked for a number of years for free even getting into the UN it was through an internship first and a sacrifice of three months so we have to kind of take things into perspective that when it comes to employability entrepreneurship it starts with sacrifice I won't lie it's not going to be glory immediately and I think that is one of the things as soon as you can try to upskill yourself especially with regards to experience put yourself out there even if the gig doesn't pay but in the long run it will pay off and finally I think with in terms of creating spaces and so on I think that as an entrepreneur again sometimes the mold may not be there for you and you can create it you kind of have to be loud I agree with Malcolm you need to create some strategic partnership partnerships so sometimes aligning yourself to organizations or individuals that can allow you to step up into that space that you are trying to create would be best so that's what I'd have to say yeah and I think that the concept of converting you know your volunteer hours and your volunteer experience into work experience is very interesting and it's very apt today because you are correct in saying that coming into the work environment you know sometimes it's that we don't always have the experience but that can be learned from the time that I spend but there are skills that you want me to come with you know and some of those skills would be critical thinking creativity problem solving and I mean Malcolm that's right up your alley problem solving so tell me what do you think are some of the gaps or ways that we can fill the gaps I want to thank Keith Linford for touching on the comment that was made in terms of volunteerism and having that experience before actually going into the professional environment so let's say I just left university I graduated with a bachelor's in accounting I'm looking to get into one of the top accounting firms in the country or in the region and you know the Aximi for some amount of experience years of experience and I don't have those amount of years of experience you know so those are constant restraints or limitations that youths would run into but in terms of volunteerism I mean over your years at the university you can spend some time probably volunteering at one of the youth clubs as the accounting officer you know all of those things would help in adding up some experience over time and that would help in terms of building your skills and also building your capacity as it relates to experience so thank you for sharing on that Keith Lin and one of my other recommendations that I would recommend is the development of a regional or a national skills forum to improve information sharing amongst stakeholders because as we see the region is moving in different I would say in a different part because just as Nicholas would have stated things are not analog anymore so we're looking at automation we're looking at different forms of technology fintech all these new industries that are emerging so I think persons can't focus just on you know traditional jobs but we need to steer a little bit away in terms of focusing on these new industries as well and trying to put the framework in place so that you know youths would be trained in these areas and that they would receive the support that they need in order to function with these new industries that are emerging right so across the region I believe that emphasis needs to be placed in terms of identifying what are the skills that are going to be needed in the next 10 15 years for the region to be successful thank you so much and you know as you did address that from what we've been seeing here in the comment section several persons are saying that you know the volunteerism jump started their career it was their way to get the foot in the door and that companies and employers should really try to invest in creating opportunities for youth and while we're on that I would like to see that we have a lot of activity happening in the comments and now is when we would definitely move towards answering your questions so any questions that you have for our panelists please put them in there so we can have your questions answered because again this is all about you youth we are here to answer your questions and try to give you some tangible advice and some very valuable content so I would also like to ask this question with respect to persons working and coming in without any experience what structure can aside from your suggestion Malcolm what structure can there be put in place to have persons be able to formally convert that volunteerism into work experience and how do we fill the gaps for future workers at a national level could you repeat the question please yeah so just on your suggestion my question was what would be the formal way if anything can be done in terms of putting a structure in place to convert volunteerism to work experience and if there can be some sort of partnership with employers to have that done yeah so in terms of like apprenticeship programs internship programs these are all important especially for big organizations if they're looking to recruit and to have persons coming into the working environment or coming into the professional environment so there needs to be consideration at the HR level of these organizations to accept persons that are coming with some volunteer experience some other professional experiences outside of the the corporate environment thank you very much um Keith Lynn what would you say as some as somebody who has you know you founded Helen's daughters and you also you have employees so what would you say in terms of assisting young people and converting the time that they spend volunteering into actual work experience what structures do you think employers can potentially um thank you so much Tracy Ann and firstly I think one of the things that I have started to see um as well both my colleagues are entrepreneurs as well I've started to notice and I saw this in the comments um yes volunteerism terrorism isn't necessarily easy they are marginalized youth and so on who already are living through a lot of struggles and it's difficult to actually volunteer um and I think this is why they say be the change that you want to see with our organization one of the first things that we started was trying to create spaces for women in agriculture so one of that those examples was our partnership with Hotel Chocolat and creating an apprenticeship program particularly for young women who run literally the hope garden and who get the revenues generated and in a sense understand the agribusiness and well the business um position of dealing with a hotel such as someone as big something as big as Hotel Chocolat and another that we've done is we've literally tried to create spaces for women whether it's in hotels or the agribusinesses and so on um so that they can actually gain that experience um and I think that if we especially in the social enterprise fair and smaller companies try to continue that trend I believe the larger companies will listen because at the end of the day right now a lot of larger companies are paying attention more to a economy and realizing that corporate social responsibility is is integral um to all our livelihoods and to better business in general and I think that you are seeing a lot of internship programs and so forth coming on um I just think it needs to be more mainstream in the Caribbean and as someone said also in the chat um we also need to make it sort of like a core component of our schooling as well um to be a part of an apprenticeship program or to have access to an internship program instead of just a core curriculum thank you very much so we are just going to head over very shortly so two some questions from the audience but until that time Nicholas I do have a question for you so COVID-19 would have catapulted our region maybe five years down the road meaning that we now have remote work we have remote schooling and now we have a situation where we have children teaching their parents how to use technology and how to try to form that sense of bridging you know bridging the gap with respect to understanding and providing that support and my question to you is in that happening some of the technological gaps were also brought to the forefront in our region in terms of accessibility as well as the competency and that technical skill can you tell me how you can suggest um we can bridge those gaps yeah so um as you mentioned uh the infrastructure at least as a laboratory on that point the infrastructure for sure within the Caribbean region is hopefully lacking and so this has resulted in um one or inability to fully take advantage of the remote working space um but also fully take advantage of the learning opportunities as well within the virtual space and so we're taking from that vantage point what needs to be done is essentially just a bolstering of development of infrastructure from the telecos the telecommunication providers with also support from the governments um aside from that I had of course mentioned this before but digital literacy um for sure needs to start being measured and also being brought to the forefront um another key area that needs to be paid attention to is essentially the taxes and also custom fees associated with the technologies that are needed to bridge that divide right now um in Jamaica for instance um buying any piece of technology uh just basically guidance I want like probably 70 to 100 percent markup um on the price of like you know like a laptop or a phone and so these are essentially just like the basic tools that we need to enter into um the next phase or where the rest of the world is heading and so if we don't address some of these things then we'll essentially be locked out from different opportunities that the rest of the world presents from the global knowledge especially and it also prevents us from creating our own opportunities within the Caribbean and also the global sword yeah thank you Nicholas I I totally agree with you and it seems like what you're saying is that the way we can do that is by creating more of a regulated space and you know on that topic I do have a question from someone in the audience and the question is how can education labor markets and business development policies be more inclusive in every sense of the word how would you say Nicholas as you have the floor if I can just ask you to go first how would you say that the education labor markets and business development policies can be more inclusive sure yeah so firstly I believe the mindset just generally needs to shift um we I guess as a culture a Caribbean culture we need to become more open minded towards a lot of the cultural changes that will happen because of technology along with that it also means that we need to adjust and adapt many of our policies that we have in play to match the technological era currently policies essentially have been on the back burner with respect to how we adapt to this new this new digital space it's very hard for us to keep up because one we don't necessarily include many young people along the spectrum at the decision table and so that for sure needs to change especially if many of the existing policy leaders and decision makers don't necessarily understand or even have the full capacity to appreciate the future prospects of what can they have from including a lot of our digital strategies and technology into the space thank you so much Nicholas and Keith Lynn if I can just get your perspective on that question thanks so much Tracy and I think I'll have to dissect it firstly I'll start by saying that inclusivity is never the approach we take when we're trying to create policies in my personal opinion when it comes to education there are a number of issues that we are dealing with the rural and urban gap for example also educational difficulties particularly with kids that have all kinds of whether it's dyslexia and so on that for some reason are still not able to be mentored through or even have the appropriate interventions for in the Caribbean when it comes to the labor markets and also I'm trying to see the question again and also business development policies when you look at well entrepreneurs in general finance and access to finance most of our banks are still risk averse they don't necessarily care about the trajectory of whatever you're trying to achieve and and what the global trench may necessarily be but it's literally collateral based most times or all times a lot of our entrepreneurs do not have collateral so similar to what Nicholas is saying that we're constantly on the back end and when you look at for example countries like Africa that we see we believe that we are more developed but in the tech and agri and many other sides they are like years ahead of us because they've been able to achieve ecosystems that are able to support them outside of the traditional financial sector and so on and finally when it comes to business development policies again inclusivity is not at the core of developing these policies I think it's very much a capitalist system because I work with women particularly I would say that in a sense it's actually still a very biased system in a lot of ways in St. Lucia for example two-thirds of women are small business owners but when you look at the traditional lending portfolio it's about 25 percent of men that actually get business loans versus about 12 percent of women so that's literally double the set of men even though there are more women in Japanese in St. Lucia so I think in general we really need to take a big approach to inclusivity not only at the policy level at the governmental side but also in our private sector as well okay there were some great points thank you so much Keith Lynn and Malcolm just to pose the question to you can you tell us give us your perspective please yes Tracy so as I would have mentioned before in terms of having a skills in demand in general generator in the Caribbean because if we're going to plan for the future if we want to get up to the level as Tracy said as I'm sorry as Keith Lynn said with all these other European countries etc that are light years ahead of us we have to plan for what are the new industries how are we going to have persons trained for in these industries and also how our education system in the Caribbean and locally is going to support that demand for these new industries recently I believe it was the PM of Trinidad and Tobago he would have mentioned the creation of a single market register a single company register so how that would work is that if a company is registered in Barbados that means it's registered across Carcom and able to do trade etc so if we're going to really speak about going past certain barriers trade limitations restrictions if we're going to talk about single market economy and all these other factors then we need to seriously address you know what are the limitations that are affecting these labor markets etc thank you so much for that and I know we've had so much said today and what I really want to ask you panelists is if there's one thing one single takeaway that you would want a young person or youth or anybody looking on today if there is one thing that you'd like them to take away Keith learn can you tell me what that one thing would be I think the one thing would be self-belief and investing in yourself I think as Caribbean youth and national sometimes our size we can kind of get really I guess underwhelmed when in comparison to perhaps African American whatever other entrepreneurs or other persons that have achieved so much and I think they are so there's so much promise in the Caribbean region and there are so many problems that we need to tackle but we already have such innovative solutions so it's a matter of really taking up the mantle believing in yourself investing in yourself and knowing that there are persons there are organizations along the way that can really help you through that journey thank you Keith learn Nicholas tell me what would be the one thing that I a young person should leave here with today I guess just following along the path of probably staying hungry and foolish and curious and that kind of moves into if you like if you're feeling lost for instance which I certainly have felt in the past just starting with something that feels interesting just going down that rabbit hole exploring if it doesn't resonate move on to something else until something resonates and then continue on that path until a certain difficulty just manifests it just works yeah thank you so much I think it's it's it's usually not said enough but giving yourself the opportunity to make mistakes and to fail and to get things right and to figure out what you want and what you don't want and the type of life that you want to live it's not said enough and it's something that we should always remind young people of telling me America what would be the one thing that you'd want someone to take away today well first off I'd like to say that we all know that the COVID-19 pandemic would have had such a gruesome impact on the economy in the Caribbean there's a lot of views as well level of lost jobs they're always etc earning always would have been slashed during the pandemic so like I said we really need to put a focus in terms of being prepared for the future being prepared for what's to come and I would have mentioned before early as well that our whole entrepreneurship journey is not overnight it's a process it's going to take a while and don't be afraid to fail fail but continue trying thank you thank you so much and as we close the curtain on this very impactful exciting and informative panel we just want to remind people young people stick to your guns don't be afraid to fail and continue to have that belief in yourself and I say thank you to the panel and all of my panelists for such tangible advice again and having fresh and innovative brilliant absolutely brilliant ideas of what it means to be Caribbean and to make a meaningful contribution so thank you very much and to the audience thank you for your contributions and all of your comments such engaging discussions and you know the bank always has something very exciting happening so make sure creating networks and to communicate with the right people align yourself and the bank remains committed to young people and keeping on that topic there is no better person to champion the cause of youth than a young person so it gives me great pleasure to introduce Mr. Young Person Mr. Dapper himself Daniel Best director of the projects department at the Caribbean Development Bank with a very special announcement the hello Daniel welcome hi hi Tracey and thank you so much for the job you did but but more importantly thank you so much for calling me a young person you've made my year thanks thanks so much Tracey and as we start sorry go ahead please no I was just going to to comment and say as we say in Trinidad you look very sharp man oh my goodness thank you you and you continue so thanks even more for that thank you you know I Tracey I wish to start by congratulating all who supported us planners and speakers with special recognition of the young leaders and advocates who conceptualize this forum and who work with the cdb team to deliver this youth fire forum Amy Francis the Nietzsche Foundation actually last year the hair campaign dorsher Charles survival scholars Dominique Norales ambassador 2022 with ui stat carefield core Kerber Marie Kettles one young world Caribbean coordinator and ambassador Ariel Neely from our host country the Turks and Kekos island our own team here at the Caribbean development bank Miss Kimberly Gettings Paul Murphy Amanda Lynch Foster Karen Ramsey Deji Clarendon and Camille Taylor and of course our emcee Renee Adwell this year's forum was compelling which is a testament to our young people's extraordinary capacity to lead as well as to identify and deliver solutions to critical issues facing the region today we witnessed the young people from across the Caribbean of different ages genders backgrounds interest groups and specializations as well as other development partners coming together to present and co-create concrete ideas and solutions admittedly the discussions skillfully moderated by Karen and Tracey and highlighted some examples of progress however what struck me most is that every single speaker expressed that much more can be done and much more needs to be done with urgency and now crazy Jamila calling on Nica and you reminded us that climate change is the single biggest health threat facing our Caribbean societies and while no one is safe from these risks the people whose health is being harmed first and worse are the people contributing to these causes and who are at least able to protect themselves and their families against it the most vulnerable we at CDB listened to your experiences and your recommendations we were equally attentive to and very excited by the vast potential we have in the region for youth led actions to improve resilience in climate change and health across the bank's 19 boring member countries it was also my privilege to hear about the work that Keith Lynn Nicholas and Malcolm are leading on and their recommendations on the skills and competencies needed for youth to gain decent work opportunities we also heard from members of and advocates for indigenous peoples persons with disabilities youth in urban communities and those from migrant populations in Amy Katrina Obrina and Ariela respectively key takeaways from your excellent presentations are they need to ensure that education offers a solid foundation for employability skills that youth should continuously audit their skills improve existing skills and acquire new ones as per ever evolving market demand that the barriers to achieve inclusion of the most vulnerable individuals are multiple and complex and as such there needs to be coordinated and integrated mechanisms and capacities at the national and regional levels and enhance cross sector services to ensure inclusion of vulnerable groups the energy creativity and innovativeness of our youth are not lost on the banks executive management I therefore wish to conclude my tributes by commanding Dr. Jean Leon president of the Caribbean Development Bank Ms. Yvette Limonia-Seal vice president corporate services and Mr. Isaac Solomon vice president operations for their continued support to the region's youth and for ensuring that the youth forum was given prominence on the agenda of the board of governors meeting again this year we are acutely aware that there can be no sustainable development unless our young people are at the center of efforts as equal and trusted development partners as such I am pleased to announce that CDB will shortly launch its future leaders network or CFLN the CFLN will be the bank's formal mechanism for consulting with young people benefits the young people include an opportunity for knowledge sharing capacity building opportunities to draw on the bank's convening power and coaching and mentorship because for expressions of interest to join the CFLN is now open to young people from the bank's 19 borrowing member countries we will be posting this on our social media platform on the dot of 12 p.m. today CDB through its CFLN is creating a seat at our table we do hope that young people from across the region will join us to lead innovate and co-create ladies and gentlemen youth and young people across our region we thank you for tuning in thank you