(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana)     Over twenty CARICOM Youth Ambassadors (CYAs) are now equipped to promote the benefits of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) to their peers throughout the Community having completed a two-day CSME Advocacy Workshop in Guyana on May 29-30. Participants were satisfied with the knowledge and skills that they gained from the workshop and expressed their commitment to championing the CSME and its benefits to their peers upon returning to their respective Member States. They will be making particular use of social media and other interactive tools to carry out their advocacy efforts

In his remarks at the workshop’s opening ceremony, CARICOM Secretary-General, Ambassador Irwin LaRocque, referring to advocating the CSME to the youth, urged the CYAs to “think about how you can distil and deliver this message to them because you are all critical to the success not only of the CSME but also the wider regional integration movement”. He also emphasised that as Youth Ambassadors, they were the champions of the Community’s efforts to deepen the regional integration movement through the CSME and other programmes. Representative of the Delegation of the European Union to Guyana, Mr. Robert Baldwin, who also addressed the gathering, echoed the Secretary-General’s sentiments on the role of the CYAs by pointing out that “effective communication is very important, and this task will fall to you, as CARICOM Youth Ambassadors, to explain the advantages that integration, partnership, and cooperation can bring”.
Hosted by the CARICOM Secretariat with the assistance of the Tenth European Development Fund the workshop participants were trained in the operations of the CSME as well as in public speaking, media interviews and developing youth-friendly messages among other areas.