THE Prime Minister has boasted that apart from Canada, no other country in the Western Hemisphere offers its young people opportunities for development that Trinidad and Tobago does.
Dr Rowley made this boast when he addressed a PNM public meeting at Tropical Angel Harps panyard, Enterprise, Chaguanas in the night on March 7.
He issued a public challenge to anyone to prove him wrong about this.
"I challenge any government, any minister of any government, anywhere in the Western Hemisphere except possibly Canada, to come to Trinidad and Tobago to see that the programmes that we have outlined here (for young people) that are under way exist anywhere else in the Western Hemisphere.
"There is no other country that has a range of opportunities for young people anywhere except possibly Canada, and Canada is a country that has far more resources than we have."
He reminded PNM supporters that elections have consequences, and the PNM's re-election in August 2020 allowed him, as prime minister, to make two new and unprecedented cabinet appointments. The first was a Youth Development and National Service Ministry.
Rowley said, "Priority expenditure goes on that ministry. In this government, in this country, priority expenditure is on the min of youth development because that is securing our future."
He recalled that Trinidad and Tobago's first prime minister, Dr Eric Williams, said the country's future was in the bookbags of its schoolchildren.
Rowley said, "A part of that future is in the opportunities that we provide for people to use what is in the bookbag."
But while the Government does all within its power to create a range of opportunities for young people to develop themselves, Rowley lamented, "We have a group of young people who want no part of that and are choosing shortcuts."
That shortcut, he continued, includes a gun and a car.
While these people end up in a life of crime, Rowley said they are not the main problem in the country, because they have to be led by others to go astray.
He called upon families to do all they can to encourage their younger members to access programmes that can help them achieve a sustainable way of living.
"Parents, aunties, uncles, brothers, you are required to encourage your young people who are close to you. Give them the support and encouragement to get into one of these programmes, to be able to come out of it, to be able to benefit from it."
[caption id="attachment_1068961" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, right, and Minister of Works and Transport Rohan Sinanan, at a PNM political meeting at Tropical Angel Harps Pan Yard, Chaguanas, on March 7. - Photo by Angelo Marcelle[/caption]
Rowley said all that was needed to guide young people in the right path was discipline from their families.
He recalled benefiting from that discipline, growing up as a child in Mason Hall, Tobago.
"In the house that I grew up in, there was a law. Nobody is to lie down in this bed when the sun comes up."
Rowley encouraged the public to
