Dear Editor,
Attempting to build a nation without having its youth at the centre of all plans is like planting a non-fruit-bearing tree and expecting to get apples.
That has been the approach of the Portia Simpson Miller-led Administration. Since being voted to power two years ago, the Government has sought to sell the notion that the Jamaican economy is on the right path and Jamaica will experience sustainable development. But, how so? How can a nation be on the right path to sustainable development when its youth are not being developed?
In 2011 as a speaker in the “Youth Debates” leading up to the general elections, Lisa Hanna, now the minister of youth, so eloquently quoted statistics on how every Jamaican, age 40 and under, owed $600,000 of monies we did not spend. How much do we owe now? As our minister, she is well aware of the amount of ‘un-self-imposed’ debt we owe and yet with all the committees she has put together, she has never thought to convene one that will find sustainable ways to alleviate youth unemployment. How does the Government expect us to pay back the debt they placed us in without sustainable employment? How will the economy grow when we have no spending power? How do they expect us to create our own forms of employment when there is so much red tape barring us from venture capital loans?
With every move the Administration has made so far, the only development taking place is “youth depression”, “youth disenfranchisement”, and a population of uninspired youth whose dream is to get a “buss” overseas, so they can leave Jamaica. #iRepYoungJamaica
Okeino Robinson
Greater Portmore,
St Catherine
kingenglish97@gmail.com
Attempting to build a nation without having its youth at the centre of all plans is like planting a non-fruit-bearing tree and expecting to get apples.
That has been the approach of the Portia Simpson Miller-led Administration. Since being voted to power two years ago, the Government has sought to sell the notion that the Jamaican economy is on the right path and Jamaica will experience sustainable development. But, how so? How can a nation be on the right path to sustainable development when its youth are not being developed?
In 2011 as a speaker in the “Youth Debates” leading up to the general elections, Lisa Hanna, now the minister of youth, so eloquently quoted statistics on how every Jamaican, age 40 and under, owed $600,000 of monies we did not spend. How much do we owe now? As our minister, she is well aware of the amount of ‘un-self-imposed’ debt we owe and yet with all the committees she has put together, she has never thought to convene one that will find sustainable ways to alleviate youth unemployment. How does the Government expect us to pay back the debt they placed us in without sustainable employment? How will the economy grow when we have no spending power? How do they expect us to create our own forms of employment when there is so much red tape barring us from venture capital loans?
With every move the Administration has made so far, the only development taking place is “youth depression”, “youth disenfranchisement”, and a population of uninspired youth whose dream is to get a “buss” overseas, so they can leave Jamaica. #iRepYoungJamaica
Okeino Robinson
Greater Portmore,
St Catherine
kingenglish97@gmail.com