CARICOM SHOULD LEAD IN DIASPORA YOUTH IDENTITY

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Dr Edward Greene, Assistant Secretary-General for Human and Social Development, of the CARICOM Secretariat is encouraging and advocating a closer relationship between the Diaspora and Caribbean Youth; a relationship he describes as “vital to an appreciation of the Caribbean identity.”

“Depending on their socialization, the Youth in the Diaspora,” he says, “are increasingly growing away from their Caribbean roots and unless we evoke a culture in which CARICOM takes the lead in making the Diaspora aware of the advantages of identifying with the Caribbean, the gap will only widen.”

Speaking in an interview with the Secretariat’s Public Information Unit, Dr Greene adds that a “drawing card” is necessary to forge a stronger link between Diaspora and Caribbean Youth.

He alludes to earlier successes of the West Indian Cricket as a source of Diaspora pride in the Caribbean and advocates the need to utilise international and cultural icons as well as the Creative and Cultural industries to reach the youth in the Diaspora.

These comments were made in the context of the Conference on the Caribbean scheduled to take place in Washington DC on June 19-21, 2007. As Dr Greene sees it, the Conference on the Caribbean will provide an opportune medium through which the CARICOM Commission on Youth Development, which is also on a fact- finding mission, could get critical answers to youth-related challenges.

The three-day Conference on the Caribbean is being seen as one of the most forward-looking initiatives to emerge in CARICOM / US relationship in recent years and aims, to strengthen the relationship between the Caribbean and the US; to showcase investment opportunities in the region, and to engage the over five million people in the Caribbean Diaspora in the United States.