On Jan­u­ary 10, 2014, a Cari­com com­mit­tee was formed to pro­mote the de­vel­op­ment of sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy as a tool for eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment by work­ing close­ly with all gov­ern­ments and sci­en­tif­ic or­gan­i­sa­tions in the re­gion. This com­mi­tee serves as an ad­vi­so­ry body to the prime min­is­ter re­spon­si­ble for sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy in Cari­com, Hon Kei­th Mitchell, prime min­is­ter of Grena­da.

The com­mi­tee's mem­bers are Mr James Hus­bands, di­rec­tor of So­lar Dy­nam­ics, Prof Car­di­nal Warde, di­as­po­ra rep­re­sen­ta­tive who is a pro­fes­sor of Elec­tri­cal En­gi­neer­ing at the Mass­a­chu­setts In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, USA, Prof Harold Ramkissoon, pres­i­dent emer­i­tus of CARI­SCIENCE (Chair), Dr Arnol­do Ven­tu­ra, for­mer ad­vi­sor to the prime min­is­ter of Ja­maica, Prof Ishenkum­ba Kah­wa, deputy prin­ci­pal of the Mona Cam­pus, UWI, and Mr Kent Mitchell.

On June 15, this com­mit­tee re­mains the same. It is all male and none are rep­re­sen­ta­tive of youth. One would have hoped that they would have recog­nised this im­bal­ance and done some­thing about it af­ter two years.

In re­la­tion to gen­der, ac­cord­ing to Cari­com, the ide­al Caribbean per­son "nour­ish­es in him/her­self and in oth­ers, the fullest de­vel­op­ment of each per­son's po­ten­tial with­out gen­der stereo­typ­ing and em­braces dif­fer­ences and sim­i­lar­i­ties be­tween fe­males and males as a source of mu­tu­al strength." In fact, Cari­com's lat­est strate­gic plan ad­vo­cates a "de­vel­op­ment agen­da that de­vel­ops mea­sures for a peo­ple-cen­tred ap­proach to pover­ty re­duc­tion; de­vel­ops mea­sures for pro­tec­tion and in­clu­sion to guar­an­tee op­por­tu­ni­ties for the most vul­ner­a­ble and dis­ad­van­taged and takes ac­count of the trans­for­ma­tive and mul­ti­pli­er ef­fect of gen­der equal­i­ty and em­pow­er­ment of women on de­vel­op­ment ac­tiv­i­ty and gains."

The Cari­com Youth De­vel­op­ment Ac­tion Plan (CY­DAP), strives to im­prove ac­cess to the qual­i­ty and quan­ti­ty of op­por­tu­ni­ties avail­able to ado­les­cents and youth be­tween the ages of ten and 29 years, and in and out-of-school. Cari­com al­so seeks their full par­tic­i­pa­tion as ar­chi­tects and en­ablers of the re­gion's de­vel­op­ment.

Women rep­re­sent 51 per cent of the Caribbean pop­u­la­tion and 66 per cent of the re­gion's pop­u­la­tion are youth. There are Caribbean-wide agen­cies that can pro­vide ex­cel­lent and in­no­v­a­tive young sci­en­tists and en­gi­neers and fe­male sci­en­tists and en­gi­neers to serve on the Cari­com Sci­ence & Tech­nol­o­gy Com­mit­tee that would bet­ter re­flect who we are–such as Cari­com Youth Am­bas­sadors, the Caribbean Youth En­vi­ron­ment Net­work, and the var­i­ous col­leges, tech­ni­cal in­sti­tutes, and uni­ver­si­ties of the re­gion.

Giv­en the lack of gen­der equal­i­ty and youth rep­re­sen­ta­tion on their com­mit­tee, we write to en­sure steps are tak­en to se­cure fe­male and youth rep­re­sen­ta­tion on the com­mit­tee by De­cem­ber 31. It is crit­i­cal that the com­mit­tee rep­re­sents Cari­com's goals and ideals and re­flects its di­ver­si­ty

Ar­i­an­na Mar­shall, en­gi­neer, Bar­ba­dos

Ayan­na Samuels, en­gi­neer, Ja­maica

Fa­ti­ma Pa­tel, sci­en­tist, Bar­ba­dos

Karen Whar­ton, en­gi­neer, New York, Guyana

Kem­ron Du­font, en­gi­neeer, Grena­da

Maya Trotz, en­gi­neer, Tam­pa/Guyana

Tri­na Halfhide, en­gi­neer, Trinidad & To­ba­go

Wainel­la Isaacs, en­gi­neer, Tam­pa/Guyana