Minister of Finance Camillo Gonsalves says the government will be spending over the next six months “hundreds of thousands of dollars each month”, financing volunteer activity among young people across St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
The money will be spent under the EC$1.5 million Taiwan-financed Greater Youth Volunteerism and Engagement (GYVE) (pronounced “give”) programme, the minister’s brainchild.
“There’s a system, but my mandate from the prime minister and the Cabinet is that we’re not going to make this thing overly bureaucratic,” Gonsalves said.
“We’re going to measure you: ‘Are your group?’ Do you have an idea?’ ‘Is the idea feasible?’” the finance minister said.
He said GYVE was intended to reach the “one untouched area” of the government’s youth programmes.
Gonsalves noted that PRYME dealt with entrepreneurs and SET and ON-SITE catered to young people who wanted to enter the more traditional workforce.
“… but we had not yet dealt with those who, through acts of solidarity, through acts of community and civic engagement, through acts of volunteerism, wanted to help their community around them, and thus give us the missing link in that constellation of stars that we’re trying to establish to benefit young people,” Gonsalves said.
He noted that Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves has spoken about what he calls “atomised individualism”, where people increasingly look inwards, look at themselves.
The finance minister said:
“Everybody has a phone, and sometimes it seems that their entire life is lived through the prism of their cell phone, and everybody is the star of their own movie, and everybody is a person and a galaxy unto themselves.
“And when you start to talk to some people who live in that world — that atomised, individualist world — about community things, it’s not that they don’t want to be involved. But it’s almost that they need assistance in getting from this sense of atomised individualism to getting into a community productive engagement.”
Speaking at the launch, project coordinator Nigel Scott said GYVE “seeks to reintroduce and revitalise the whole spirit of volunteerism”.
He said the idea is that groups of no less than six and no greater than 15 young people aged 19 to 35 can get together and come up with an idea to assist their communities.
“They put that together as a proposal and submit it to the project implementation unit. … You complete the application form and submit it to the project implementation unit.”
Scott said that once the project is vetted and approved, GYVE will provide the equipment needed for the particular initiative.
“… very importantly, it will provide a very small stipend for the persons, the project team members, who are working on the project,” Scott said.
The stipend will be EC$55 a day, EC$5 more than the minimum wage.
“There will be a six-month cycle for the project, and at the end of six months, the groups are free to reapply to the project for a second disbursement, maybe a different project, or even the same project,” Scott said.
Meanwhile, Gonsalves said that once the project is something that young people can do, “GYVE will be here to help, but noted that it must be a group effort.
“… the reason we have it as a group is because we want this idea of community activism. We want this idea of solidarity. … we want to foster this spirit that when young people see an issue in their community, they get together with one another to deal with it,” the finance minister said.
“You provide the idea, you provide the energy, you provide the organisation and GYVE will provide, whatever the tools are that you need to get this job done,” Gonsalves said.
He said that when people don’t want to volunteer and don’t care about the community, “we want GYVE to be the answer that proves all of them wrong.
“The government this year has put $1.5 million into the GYVE programme, and we’re practically in June. So we plan to spend a lot of money this year.”
Meanwhile, Taiwan Ambassador to SVG, Fiona Fan, said her country was “proud to stand with St. Vincent and the Grenadines in championing youth empowerment.
“… both of our nations have prioritised developing young leaders across sectors. Young people are not just the future, they are vital access to our present,” Fan said.