NextGen wall during a recent event.
Minister of Education, Youth Culture and Sports, Jorien Wuite also attended the event.
PHILIPSBURG–Young people are crucial in shaping the 2030 agenda, in tackling 21st century challenges, steering action and transforming change in their communities.
The Nextgen (Next Generation) voice and input must be taken into consideration as St. Maarten works toward a more resilient future. For this reason a special NextGen session was organised on Saturday, March 17, during the Build Back Better Week Sint Maarten (SXM) held at Simpson Bay Resort and Marina.
Minister of Education, Youth, Culture and Sports Jorien Wuite attended, actively participated in the interactive session, pledged full support and gave a call to action to the NextGen of SXM in the setting up of a local Philipsburg Global Shapers Hub. The Global Shapers Community is an international platform empowering youth in driving dialogue, action and change.
The NextGen session was a special youth side-event of the “Do-Tank,” a hackathon-like event where 21 teams competed to offer the winning idea for rebuilding a more resilient future for Sint Maarten.
“The active participation of young leaders is needed to build a transformative, integrated and interrelated agenda to make St. Maarten more sustainable, renewable and resilient,” stated a NextGen voice press release.
The Centre of Excellence (COE) for the Sustainable Development of Small Island States (SIDS), a United Nations Development Programme initiative based in Aruba, co-organisation the Build Back Better Week SXM along with Ernst Young (EY) Caribbean, and the Dutch Caribbean Chambers of Commerce co-organised the event.
The NextGen side-event was a collaboration between the youth platform of Aruba Oranjestad Global Shapers Hub of the World Economic Forum, the Youth2Youth Community of the World Bank Group, the Global Youth Climate Network and Global Storytelling for Global Development platform organised specially to ignite and spark a conversation with the young people of Sint Maarten.
The Nextgen session brought key ideas and topics of crucial importance to the young people of St Maarten, from plastic pollution to social cohesion, which ultimately culminated in a cohesive sharing of young people’s visions for building back better St Maarten.
Additionally, young people from other Caribbean countries such as the Dominican Republic and Suriname, through the youth Global Shapers platform, shared their ideas, challenges and solutions as well as local community-led projects with virtual video recordings. The session showed an interdisciplinary and inter-generational dialogue; participants varied from public to private sector.
To further build on the energy and ideas expressed during this session, a Social Commitment Contract Wall, otherwise called the “SoCoCo” Wall, will be set up in diverse accessible public spaces where all of St. Maarten NextGen are given the opportunity and encouraged to express their vision and personal commitments to Sint Maarten.
The first pop-up location brought together a group of young people at the Creative Industries Interactive Exchange Forum (CIIEF), on Wednesday, March 21, where people had a chance to write down their commitments and future visions. The NextGen dialogue and SoCoCo wall are just the beginning to give young people a stronger voice and put the power of youth in action.
Follow the Facebook page of the BBB event
www.facebook.com/BuildBackBetterSXM for further developments and pop-up locations of the SoCoCo wall. The organisers said this wall has the potential to represent the collective story of the vision of the NextGen of St. Maarten on Building Back Better and can serve as input to the Government of St. Maarten.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/75146-nextgen-voice-working-for-better-st-maarten
View comments
Hide comments