Thank you to my readers

In 2005 when I returned from Law School, I was led to begin a series of articles. The objective was to explore matters touching and concerning all spheres of youth development. The emphasis was always to analyse the Vincentian youth within the context of our socio- economic needs.{{more}}

This was to entail a little of the theory on youth development; a national and regional experience on youth interaction; and a focus particularly on the challenges which we face from day to day as young people.

The discourse developed and was nurtured around weekly responses from readers, words of encouragement from critics, and the input from young persons from different communities and social organizations which assisted in bringing the information together. Several perspectives were also given by colleagues in Barbados, St. Lucia, Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago on many youth issues.

It was from this exercise that the following formulation was coined, that “Our nation is in dire need of an exceptional cadre of multi-talented young people who will not only be capable of managing their personal lives; but who will be able to build stronger communities; structure a better nation, whilst at the same time working towards the repositioning of our nation in the OECS sub-region, and the region through the framework of CARICOM as our nation continues to grapple with many of the challenges in this fast changing global environment.”

It was for this reason that the role of the current education revolution in SVG was addressed in several articles, and I maintain that the education revolution once properly consolidated has the potential of taking our civilization to the next level.

For any nation to move forward, it takes responsible citizens to implement a clearly articulated vision aimed at addressing the needs of our people.

How do you ascertain the real needs of the people? It takes a careful process of interaction with citizens if we are to compile the requisite data. Every citizen has an important part to play in the process.

Hence, many articles were written encouraging our young people to be in the vanguard of our national developmental struggles; to ensure that the “youth voice” is heard clearly; and to make certain that our young people address their minds to topical issues. The implications of which would have to be dealt with in the not too distant future.

I sincerely thank the Board and management of the Searchlight newspaper for affording me the opportunity to write during the period which I was allowed to do so as a columnist. My next project is to compile the five years of work for further introspection and public discussion so as to broaden the analysis in each area.

After doing anything for five years, it will definitely become a part of you. I was 25 years old when I started, and almost five years later brings me today, now I am bordering 30 years. The experience was one which taught me that the press can be a very powerful tool to educate and to evoke responses which may be critical to the development of our people. We have often heard the cliché as young people, that “you are the men and women of tomorrow,” but for many of us the tomorrow referred to then is actually today.

Definitely this will not be the end of my writing on issues concerning our youth and other aspects of national development, but this brings to an end the series “Full Disclosure.”

Many thanks to all readers.

Saboto Caesar is a Lawyer and Unity Labour Party Senator, now serving as Minister in the Ministry of Housing etc.