The Youth Assemblyman for Parlatuvier/L'Anse Fourmi/Speyside, 16-year-old fifth form student of the Speyside High School Adriel Wheeler, has been selected as Tobago’s first shadow chief secretary.
THA Chief Secretary Farley Augustine announced this on Sunday at the launch of Youth Transcending Boundaries – a new non-governmental organisation (NGO) formed in Speyside.
Augustine, the feature speaker, said the Office of the Chief Secretary is about to begin a new initiative in which every month a young person would be selected to shadow the chief secretary for a day.
He said: “Every single month, we would select a young person, a young leader from the Tobago space from each of the secondary schools to more or less be chief secretary and shadow me, whereby I would pick you up in the official vehicle of the chief secretary, you’ll be in my office, you’ll be in my meetings, you’ll be in my engagements for that day.”
He said those individuals who are selected or nominated to participate must come to his office with their own brief: “A brief that would say what are the challenges you face in your respective schools and your community, what are some of the solutions, what are the ideas that you see for the Tobago space. So you’re not coming empty-handed, you’re coming with your brief.”
He said in conversation with the staff at the Office of the Chief Secretary, he told them it should be left up to schools to decide who they would send.
“But there is one caveat – for the very first one, I would decide who would come out of Speyside High School, because Speyside High can’t send anybody else but Adriel Wheeler.”
He said before the end of the month, Wheeler would be taken away from his schoolwork.
“I don’t think your teachers would mind; they’re accustomed losing you to youth work every so often. But I would like for you to be the first participant in such a programme.”
He added: “All of us who have had or who have the privilege of representational politics, we have to open our doors and allow young people into spaces that they see as out of reach. Let them understand that its very much in their reach, and that you are a co-owner to these leadership spaces.”
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