Camille Clarke

The non-gov­ern­ment or­gan­i­sa­tion Net­work for the Ad­vance­ment of Women wants to be in­clud­ed in the Peo­ple's Space at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, dur­ing the up­com­ing Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing (CHOGM).

At a news con­fer­ence on Wednes­day at the Pro­fes­sion­al Cen­tre, Port-of-Spain, NGO co-or­di­na­tor Hazel Brown said af­ter a meet­ing was held on Wednes­day by the Na­tion­al Steer­ing Com­mit­tee, she was told that sev­er­al civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions would be ex­clud­ed from the fo­rum. She said con­cerns were raised about their treat­ment, as the Peo­ple's Space fea­ture of the con­fer­ence was spe­cial­ly de­signed for civ­il or­gan­i­sa­tions to voice their con­cerns. Pro­pos­als were put out by the Na­tion­al Sec­re­tari­at of CHOGM in mid-Oc­to­ber and 34 civ­il or­gan­i­sa­tions pre­sent­ed 50 pro­pos­als. Brown said the Peo­ple's Space was for civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions.

"We have sub­mit­ted a pro­pos­al and we plan to make the fo­rum more in­ter­ac­tive and fun," Brown said. She said the net­work was in­formed that the Peo­ple's Space would be held at the Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel and at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah. "We will be send­ing a state­ment to the na­tion­al sec­re­tari­at, the Com­mon­wealth Foun­da­tion, the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and the 600 peo­ple reg­is­tered to protest this de­ci­sion," said Brown. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the To­co Foun­da­tion, Michael Alves, said the Peo­ple's Space is his­tor­i­cal and rep­re­sents the peo­ple. "We were up­dat­ed and the mem­bers did not in­clude our civ­il so­ci­ety or any rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the steer­ing com­mit­tee," she said. "Our space is for the peo­ple and we are not go­ing to let any­body short-cir­cuit that. It is not the gov­ern­ment space, and the civ­il so­ci­ety rep­re­sents the peo­ple," Alves said. She said the net­work will meet with for­eign min­is­ters to­day.