Heavy agenda for Youth Advisory Council in 2024
The President’s Youth Advisory Council (PYAC) will be taking on a heavy work plan this year following an allocation of $75 Million during the National Assembly’s consideration of estimates and expenditures.
This was disclosed by Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira.
“The program of the Youth Advisory Council relates to a number of activities empowering youth. They, for example, will have countrywide exercises to showcase all the programmes that are available to young people either through the [Public Service Ministry] or other institutions,” she posited.
The minister further explained that these exercises will be collaborative efforts with different sectors, such as housing, education, and labour, to bring several government services to the youth in different geographical locations.
These events, titled the PYAC+Government Fairs, may happen more than once in specific administrative regions depending on the sizes of the geographic locations.
“There will also be Business and Youth, [where] they will be having a countrywide exercise with the Small Business Bureau to explain to young people the process they would have to undertake in order to have their own businesses, and again this may be, in larger regions, a geographic split,” Minister Teixeira pointed out.
Another key initiative to be undertaken by the PYAC is titled the President’s 23. Under this initiative, 23 talented young athletes will be sponsored by the PYAC at the sum of $1 million each in direct investment into sports gear and other equipment for their development.
“The selection of these athletes will be guided by the Ministry of Culture, Youth, and Sport and His Excellency the President. The sports covered will be CrossFit, boxing, cricket, football, table tennis, squash, track and field, bodybuilding, swimming, and basketball,” the minister outlined.
In 2023, the PYAC only spent some $14.1 million. This was largely due to the advanced work that went into first making sure the body was properly organised.
“The issue was they were newly formed and they were trying to get their feet together as far as I understand and to define the parameters of their responsibility. As you know, the Council [members come] from different parts of Guyana, they’re not all Georgetown-based…this is now a year I think that you will see them do much more than they did before,” she said.