In light of the major problems facing young people in Belize and the rest of the Caribbean, Dr. Herbert Gayle, Anthropologist of Social Violence at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica, said on Monday that, “Caribbean countries need to have a ministry of youth.”
Gayle was speaking at the unveiling of the findings of the “Male Social Participation and Violence in Urban Belize” study in Belize City.
The study unearthed that Belizean children, especially in urban spaces in Southside Belize City, are grappling with major violence-related trauma; broken homes; domestic violence and other forms of abuse; as well as poverty and exclusion from school.
“There has to be something called a Ministry of Youth – not an attachment. The Ministry of Youth is like Red Bull. It has wings…” Dr. Gayle commented. “With 70% of your people under age of 35, you must have a ministry that represents 70% of your people. And I think because it’s so much in your face, it has just bereft you of your common sense.”
In Belize, the youth portfolio is currently held by Patrick Faber, who is also the Minister of Education. Youth was attached to Sports, Information and Broadcasting before the Cabinet Shuffle in June. Under the Youth portfolio are Youth for the Future, the National 4-H Center, and the National Youth Cadet Service Corporation.
Gayle also said that Caribbean countries also have to have a Ministry of Human Development which locks into what the British call the Human Unit, all the humanities locked together in one unit. These ministries don’t produce money immediately, but produce the people who produce money, he added.
The Central Political Authority – which encompasses Central Government, including the police and the executive; the judiciary and civil society, is not efficient, he noted.
There also needs to be accountability for achieving specific goals, he expressed, citing the need for “a very acid and unfriendly examination of ourselves.”