Commonwealth urges Pacific to engage youth

Transcript

The Commonwealth Youth Programme is urging governments in the Pacific to put young people at the forefront of their development policies.

Commonwealth youth ministers are meeting in Samoa this week to discuss the issues and challenges facing youth in the Pacific and around the world.

Koroi Hawkins was in Samoa and files this report.

The Pacific has the highest youth population of all Commonwealth regions and the programme manager of the Commonwealth's Youth Division, Sushil Ram, says this makes engaging young people in development a simple matter of common sense.

SUSHIL RAM:  Young people are always at the forefront of challenges, at the forefront of innovation and I think that energy, that innovation needs to be tapped by member governments for their own development and young people need to be seen as partners rather than merely recipients of development.

One of these young people is Sakaria Etuati who is taking part in a capacity building workshop organised by Samoa's National Youth Congress in Apia.  Sakaraia will be taking part in the Commonwealth Ministers meeting this week where he says he wants to learn about the issues faced by youth in other countries and share their experiences in Samoa.

SAKARAIA ETUATI:  Many Samoan youth they, no work in our village. But SNYC (Samoan National Youth Council), they collect all the youth put together and make some activities, put them together in a group and make some activities like agriculture to prepare them for their future.

KAISARINA SALESA:  I hope today we will start this exercise that will start to get you thinking about opening up your mind, opening up yourselves to new experiences. Hands up if you don't know the person sitting next to you?

Kaisarina Salesa is the programme coordinator for the Samoan National Youth Council she says having the Commonwealth Youth Ministers meeting in Samoa this week is an important opportunity for youth in Samoa to help them understand that they have an important role to play in the development of their country, the region and the world.

KAISARINA SALESA:  We want to be heard especially because we are mostly affected by climate change issues. Unemployment is a cross cutting issue for all us Pacific Islanders and then there is drug abuse, then alcohol abuse. Once all the commonwealth countries come here and you know partake of the Samoan culture and meet with all the young people here they will realise that we may be a quite bunch of people but we have got the heart and the soul to carry the fight.

As well as the Commonwealth Youth Ministers meeting this week, Samoa is preparing to host the 5th Commonwealth Youth Games in which up to 1000 athletes aged 14-18 will represent their country and compete for 107 Gold Medals in 9 sports over 5 days from the 5th to the 11th of this month.