President of the National Youth Council Kerdisha St.Louis as well as Caricom Youth Ambassador and Project Officer at the National Youth Council Annel Lewis represented Dominica at the 6th Caribbean Youth Leaders Summit.
Close to 200 youth leaders, development partners and other stakeholders met in the Hayatt Regency, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago from January 21st-23rd to discuss and strategize on how best to address pertinent issues such as youth employment, decent work and entrepreneurship, and advocacy.
The theme for the summit was ‘Promoting Youth Economic Empowerment – Building Synergies Towards Sustainable Caribbean Development” and was held under the auspices of the Caribbean Regional Youth Council (CRYC).
CRYC is an umbrella body representing various national youth councils of the Caribbean.
The summit is one of the Region’s foremost youth leadership events,and was attened by representatives from the national youth councils of more than ten Caribbean countries, delegates from other youth organizations and officials from regional and international development organisations.
These participants were drawn from National Youth Councils (NYCs), the Commonwealth Youth Council (CYC), youth organizations and other key youth development partners and stakeholders; including the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB); Commonwealth Secretariat; International Labour Organisation (ILO); United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UNECLAC); and, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat.
President of the National Youth Council Kerdisha St.Louis shared, “ I feel so privileged for the opportunity to attend this event… it was a very intense three days and touched on a lot of pertinent issues…what stuck with me the most is that young people across the region need more support particularly those who we consider most vulnerable. Caribbean youths need more opportunities as it relates to employment, innovation as well as education. We are somewhat more privileged in Dominica as we have a fully functional National Youth Council and the executive and secretariat look forward to providing support to our nation’s youth as well as advocating on their behalf.”
Elections were also held for the Executive Board of the Caribbean Regional Youth Council for 2020-22.
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