Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les@guardian.co.tt

With just days to go be­fore elec­tion day, young peo­ple in To­ba­go are weigh­ing their op­tions at the polls. For some, it is about jobs and op­por­tu­ni­ty. For oth­ers, it is about roads, in­fra­struc­ture, or whether vot­ing even mat­ters at all.

Sev­er­al young vot­ers told Guardian Me­dia that em­ploy­ment re­mains their main con­cern, es­pe­cial­ly for school leavers and grad­u­ates who strug­gle to find work be­cause they lack ex­pe­ri­ence.

Samaya said many young peo­ple leave school with qual­i­fi­ca­tions but are turned away by em­ploy­ers who say they are too young or lack ex­pe­ri­ence.

She said, “We have a lot of chil­dren drop­ping out of schools, but at the same time we have qual­i­fied stu­dents com­ing out with their pass­es, and they would say you have the ex­pe­ri­ence, but you’re too young, which is un­fair … How do you ex­pect them to get the ex­pe­ri­ence?”

Jal­isia Tim­o­thy said the is­sue goes be­yond em­ploy­ment and in­cludes long-term op­por­tu­ni­ties to build a fu­ture on the is­land.

“Most jobs, they want peo­ple with ex­pe­ri­ence, which doesn’t make sense. Trade school shouldn’t be the on­ly op­tion when you now come out of school.”

In­fra­struc­ture was al­so an­oth­er is­sue that they raised.

One young vot­er said, “I am look­ing for bet­ter roads. I am some­body that likes to drop my ve­hi­cle, so it must have prop­er roads for me to dri­ve my ve­hi­cle. Oth­er than that, I look for com­mu­ni­ty work. There are plen­ty of fields that need up­grad­ing and that have been ne­glect­ed.”

How­ev­er, oth­ers said they are still un­sure if they will vote.

Akinde Paul said he has stepped away from the elec­toral process be­cause he does not see mean­ing­ful change, re­gard­less of which par­ty is elect­ed.

He said, “For peo­ple in my gen­er­a­tion now, we don’t re­al­ly see the sense of vot­ing. Right now we don’t see that much change; vot­ing is a right we have, but none of my friends vote be­cause no mat­ter who win, we don’t see the dif­fer­ence. There might be small dif­fer­ences. We might have to re­search them in depth, but in gen­er­al we might not see it.

“We kind of com­ing to the con­clu­sion that who­ev­er win, we have to work with it, and we just have to keep do­ing what we do­ing; we just have to make an hon­est liv­ing.”

As cam­paign­ing en­ters its fi­nal days, po­lit­i­cal par­ties have all out­lined plans aimed at young vot­ers.

All par­ties have promised jobs, op­por­tu­ni­ties and in­cen­tives for young peo­ple in their elec­tion man­i­festos.

Both PNM and TPP promised thou­sands of jobs in the con­struc­tion, agri­cul­ture and tourism in­dus­tries.

How­ev­er, sev­er­al young vot­ers told Guardian Me­dia they re­main scep­ti­cal and will on­ly be­lieve those promis­es when they see them ma­te­ri­alise.