CARICOM Secretary-General Ambassador Irwin LaRocque on Tuesday hosted a group of tertiary students from Trinidad and Tobago who are participating in the project ‘Students Engaging the CSME through Field Promotion’.
The group visited the CCS Headquarters where they had the engagement with the Secretary General followed by a tour of the facilities. The students are currently in Guyana and will have the opportunity to visit various government Ministries and facilities that engender Regional integration under the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME). The student delegation is investigating the extent of CSME implementation in Guyana through these visits.
During his engagement with the students, the Secretary-General told the students that they were being given the opportunity to see the CSME at work.
You are a living experience that the CSME is at work. It is alive and it is well” he said.
He also gave the assurance that CARICOM would continue to build on the CSME and enhance how it functions.
The students also got the opportunity to engage with the Secretary-General on a one-on-one basis, asking questions and giving comments about their thoughts on the CSME and CARICOM. They used the opportunity to thank the CSME Unit for the opportunity to learn more about its functioning and to learn about the CARICOM Secretariat, and voiced opinions regarding ways in which the processes and systems could be improved.
One opinion that was unanimous among the students was that all the Members States needed to come together and work to ensure that the future of the CSME was sustained. According to one participant, “in order to propel further we need to address how we see each other as Member States and understand that we are all humans before anything”.
The aim of the ‘Students Engaging the CSME through Field Promotion’ is to give tertiary students practical knowledge and exposure to the CSME as it is implemented in Member States. It is also meant to motivate them to access cross-border opportunities as wage earners, entrepreneurs and service providers. The students are accompanied a lecturer and Trinidad and Tobago’s national CSME focal point.
