Happy International Youth Day to all youth living both inside and outside of Dominica! This day is celebrated every year to raise awareness of any issues that may be facing the world’s youth and to celebrate their achievements. This year’s theme is celebrated around “Intergenerational Solidarity: Creating a world for all ages.”
It is critical to leverage the full potential of all generations, and solidarity across generations is key for sustainable development. President of the National Youth Council, Ashma McDougall reminds us of the importance of forging relationships with older generations to ensure education is mutually disseminated.
Solidarity across generations poses opportunities to learn from each other – new technologies, and media for communication, cultures, traditions, and practices that can be incorporated into our daily lives as we strive to achieve sustainable development. Ageism continues to present a significant – yet, not sufficiently discussed – challenge to fostering collaboration and solidarity across age groups. Therefore the NYCD will aim to develop better relationships through a myriad of activities through December 2022, with the Council of Ageing and organisations catering to the needs of older generations in an effort to better engage with older generations.
Ashma McDougall, NYCD President
The National Youth Council celebrates this momentous day with the proud announcement of the reopening of our 2022 National Youth Awards. The Awards celebrate the contributions outstanding young people are making towards achieving national objectives and goals towards economic and youth development and importantly our SDGs. When the government or society does not focus on proper development of the youth, they tend to become rebellious and many times they can opt for the choices which are neither good for their development nor for their country. We commend the efforts made by various departments for youth; however, we wish to implore government officials to continue increasing inclusion at the national level to ensure the needs of youth are better met through youth solutions.
We will continue the grand celebrations of youth through the auspicious occasion of Caribbean Youth Day which kicks off the inaugural Caribbean Youth Month scheduled for September 30th to October 31st 2022. This is aimed at recognizing, engaging and empowering not just youth nationally, but regionally in the hope of better achieving youth advocacy towards addressing complex regional challenges affecting young people.
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