Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 260 young per­sons met to ex­change their views on the is­sues and chal­lenges im­pact­ing on their ac­cess to em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties at a re­cent Na­tion­al Youth Em­ploy­ment Fo­rum. The fo­rum was held at the Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad in Port-of-Spain un­der the theme: "My work, my fu­ture, my life."

It was host­ed by the Min­istry of Labour and Small and Mi­cro En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment, the Min­istry of Gen­der, Youth and Child De­vel­op­ment, with the sup­port of the ILO De­cent Work Team and Of­fice for the Caribbean, to mark March as Youth Em­ploy­ment Month.

In the open­ing ad­dress Er­rol Mc Leod, Min­is­ter of Labour and Small and Mi­cro En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment em­pha­sised the val­ue of work as a crit­i­cal fac­tor in re­al­is­ing the fu­ture that young peo­ple en­vi­sion. "It is not on­ly a means of earn­ing an in­come but it gives us an op­por­tu­ni­ty to use our skills and tal­ents and cre­ate mean­ing in our lives. In fact it is said that the on­ly place where suc­cess comes be­fore work is in the dic­tio­nary," said Min­is­ter Mc Leod.

Cit­ing youth un­em­ploy­ment lev­els in Trinidad and To­ba­go to be about twice that of adult rates, Mc Leod in­di­cat­ed that he was de­ter­mined to im­prove the sit­u­a­tion with the help and sup­port of the young peo­ple. He urged them to pro­vide their feed­back on how the nu­mer­ous pro­grammes for youth are work­ing and how they can be im­proved to bet­ter meet their needs.

For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on the Glob­al Youth Em­ploy­ment Fo­rum, vis­it http://www.ilo.org/glob­al/top­ics/youth-em­ploy­ment/lang--en/in­dex.htm#a1