Caribbean Youths Tweet For Regional Integration

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Young people from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), say they would like to live in a united, cohesive, productive and enabling region, and that the political directorate must lend themselves to an “awakening” of their talents.

The youths made their positions known in the first ever CARICOM Twitter Relay organized by the CARICOM Youth Ambassador Program (CYAP) in observance of the 40th  anniversary of the regional integration movement.

Regional leaders will meet in Port of Spain from July 3-6 for their 34th annual summit that coincides with the 40th anniversary celebrations. They will participate in a re-enactment of the signing of the treaty of Chaguaramas establishing CARICOM at a ceremony on Thursday.

CARICOM Secretary General, Irwin LaRocque, who has already arrived here for the summit, joined the relay that attracted participation from Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago as well as Anguilla and the Turks and Caicos.

Tweets were also sent in from youths in the United Kingdom and the United States.

The organizers said Sunday’s event totalled 8, 613 persons, while the estimated level of exposure was in the vicinity of 74, 000 persons.

According to the youths who participated in the relay, the next 40 years should be a time for “implementation” and “sustained action”, where “each word and every action” from political leaders lend themselves to an “awakening” of the talents of young people.

They said the future must also be a time of creating and promoting opportunities for young people, an era in which Caribbean people feel more connected to the regional thrust and have a firm understanding of their role in the creation of a viable, unified entity, Caribbean young people said.

The youths also discussed the “utmost importance” of integration given the small size of member states and the vulnerabilities to which they are exposed.

“They tackled critical issues such as education and economic empowerment, transportation, free movement, health and wellness, culture, religion, active participation of youth in building the Community, the implementation deficit, climate change, collaboration among the private sectors of Member States, and the creation of competitive advantage in the global arena,” CYAP said in a statement.