Ali­cia Llanos

Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs Gary Hunt is urg­ing young peo­ple to as­pire to­wards the achieve­ment of their dreams by em­pow­er­ing them­selves. He said so dur­ing yes­ter­day's me­dia launch of the sec­ond an­nu­al Na­tion­al Youth Month at the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs, Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain.

The first-day launch at the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade in Port-of-Spain was can­celled yes­ter­day be­cause of in­clement weath­er. This year's Na­tion­al Youth Month, which re­volves around the theme– Achiev­ing The Dream–would cost about $2 mil­lion, Hunt said. Hunt said the theme co-or­di­nat­ed with the Gov­ern­ment's Na­tion­al Youth Pol­i­cy aimed at em­pow­er­ing and en­cour­ag­ing to­day's youth to be­come ac­tive, pro­duc­tive mem­bers of a sus­tain­able na­tion. He said youths were not the lead­ers of to­mor­row but to­day and it was the Gov­ern­ment's re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to fos­ter a pos­i­tive, em­pow­ered youth.

Youth Month, which runs un­til Ju­ly 30, is ded­i­cat­ed to re­al­i­sa­tion of five dreams out­lined by Hunt. They are Busi­ness, Em­pow­er­ment, Faith, Par­tic­i­pa­tion and Ex­cel­lence. A se­ries of events and work­shops will be held dur­ing the month. Events in­clude Youth As­sem­bly, Tal­ent Events, Youth Chal­lenges, Youth News and Busi­ness Per­son fo­rum. The hall­mark of the month, as de­scribed by Hunt, would be the Youth Ral­ly. The Youth Ral­ly will take place on Ju­ly 25 at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah.