Leaders of Youth Groups Ready to Serve

Leaders for the Youth Advisory Council of Jamaica (YACJ), the National Youth Council of Jamaica (NYCJ), and the Jamaica Union of Tertiary Students (JUTS) were appointed on May 14.

The introductions were made by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information’s State Minister, Hon. Robert Morgan, who explained that the Ministry intends to keep the youth’s voices at the forefront of policy decisions.

“I think the fact that we are in a pandemic is an even stronger reason why we need to have these programmes,” he said.

Mr. Morgan pointed out that many young people are disenfranchised because of the COVID-19 pandemic and it is important to have other youth on the ground who can easily relate to their circumstances.

These youth programmes fall under the Youth and Adolescents Policy Division (YAPD) and are implemented through the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information.

The programmes receive technical and financial support from the Ministry, to fulfil the mandate of the  YAPD.

One of the programmes, the YACJ, is comprised of 15 young persons between the ages of 18 and 27.

Guidance Counsellor and Teacher, Yanique Tracy and Project Engineer & Operations Technical Assistant, Orville Levy, are Co-chairs for the YACJ.

“When we inform the Minister on any form of policy and mainstream those youth policies into national policies, we want to make sure it’s truly reflective of what every young people is thinking, is feeling, and would like to see happen, and so we will try to set up a framework to obtain that information,” Mr. Levy explains.

He intends on giving to national youth development through contributing to sustainable policy formulation and programme development, by ensuring the views and solutions from youth are represented.

The JUTS is organised at the national level and includes student governing bodies namely, Students Association Councils, Guilds, Unions, and Movements in Colleges and Universities islandwide.

The 2021/23 President-Elect is Commonwealth Youth Peace Ambassador, Christina Williams.

Ms. Williams’ passion is for rural youth development and she has served on several committees that have led to national interventions, such as the Prime Minister’s Housing, Opportunity, Production and Employment (HOPE) programme.

Meanwhile, the NYCJ is an umbrella organisation for Youth Clubs across Jamaica. It seeks to foster youth participation at the community level and provides assistance in the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of government policy regarding youth.

The council includes a six-member national executive and the 2021/23 Chairman is National Youth Delegate to the Commonwealth Youth Council, Chevaughn Brown.

He intends to encourage youth to positively contribute to the sustainable development of national and regional programmes and policies.

Mr. Brown says that since clubs cannot meet physically at a central location, the NYCJ will engage virtual platforms and other innovative means, supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Information.

“We also have an environmental agenda that we will be working towards. We are looking into a national recyclable plan and also a national mangrove rehabilitation plan because we understand the importance of protecting the environment from the adverse effects of climate change,” he says.

Other Youth Groups that are supported through the YAPD are National Secondary Students’ Council (NSSC), Jamaica Prefects’ Association (JPA), Jamaica Youth Parliament (JYP), and the Jamaica Youth Ambassadors Programme (JaYAP).