Maria Crawford, an Information Officer at the St. Kitts and Nevis Information Service (SKNIS) speaks with Sharina Laws who returned from the Americas Youth Forum held in Mexico in late 2007. Miss Laws is a student at the Clarence Fitzroy Bryant College and a member of the UNESCO Back Chat Group. In this interview, she gives her views on the regional forum.

UNESCO SMALL ISLANDS VOICE - Part 1

MC:  Can you tell us what was the objective of the Americas Youth Forum? Did you feel empowered by being there?

SL:  The objective was to bring youths from the Americas together to gain an understanding of the problems or issues facing youth in the region. What they wanted from the forum was to get some insight regarding solutions to various problems so that we could go back to our countries and make a difference for youth.

Yes I do feel empowered, as that was the first arena where I got to see so many people from diverse backgrounds. We met people from the Caribbean and also Mexico and Nicaragua who have different backgrounds and issues, and ways of dealing with them. It gives you a sense of empowerment.

MC:  How important is it that youths are involved in the policy making process in any country?

SL:  It is very important for youth to be involved because we speak about the youth being the leaders of tomorrow when in fact they are leaders of today. We must involve them in every step because if we are going to do something for the youth, it has to be by the youth so that they can gain insight.

You can’t bake bread for someone if they don’t want to eat it so we have to make sure that at every step of the process, the youth are involved. We have a lot of ideas, but it is the avenue through which we share those ideas we need to look at.

MC:  What do you think are the main challenges to youth involvement in policy making?

SL:  There is a myth out there that the youth are up to nothing good. For every one good thing that a youngster does, we hear about ten bad things they’ve done. The media tends to focus on and portray negative images of our youth, instead of focusing on their positive achievements and boosting their self-esteem. As a result, sometimes one may want to say something, but fear victimisation.

MC:  Do you think that your views are not valued? For example in my day, although that is not so long ago, youths were more seen but not heard, so perhaps this is something from the past.  Do you think this is so?

SL:  Yes, it is something from the past, but today, I think more youth are being heard. Right now they are taking a stand for themselves in some way or form. Some may not even be aware that is what they are doing. It is time to stand up and stand out, and if we only just stand up, and nobody knows we are there, there is going to be a problem still.

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