The president of the Barbados Youth Development Council (BYDC) has lambasted successive governments for their failure to implement a national youth policy, linking this inaction to rising violence among young people.Caleb Brathwaite, speaking at a weekend press conference, expressed frustration over the prolonged silence surrounding the policy’s development. “Now, for many years, successive governments, even as far back as the last administration, the Democratic Labour Party, would have looked at the national youth policy passage, national youth policy, but as a national youth council, we do believe that there has been too much quiet around the national youth policy,” he said.Brathwaite highlighted the lack of transparency and progress, asking: “What is happening?” He noted that several committees have been formed, with Shadia Jemmott as the last known chairman, but lamented the absence of updates.The BYDC president drew a direct connection between the policy vacuum and youth violence. “You have violence among young people, but there’s in fact no national youth policy. We have these same organisations that do not have a legislative framework to be guided by,” he said.
