The Ministry of Youth, Sports & Community Empowerment through the Division of Youth Affairs presented a NATIONAL YOUTH SERVICE Celebrating National Youth Week 2022 at the Garfield Sobers Auditorium on the 25th September.
In attendance were Her Excellency, The Most Honorable Dame Sandra Mason President of the Republic of Barbados, The Honorable Charles
Griffith Minister of Youth, Sports and Community Empowerment, His Honour Senator Reginald Farley – President of the Senate, Members of the Diplomatic Corps, Members of the Parliament of Barbados, Mrs. Yolande Howard – Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Community Empowerment and other Permanent Secretaries, youth from
various youth and community organizations representatives of
all faith based organizations.
Caribpix is now publishing the Feature Address given by Ms. Ashley Lashley.
” Her Excellency, The Most Honorable Dame Sandra Mason
President of the Republic of Barbados, The Honorable Charles
Griffith Minister of Youth, Sports and Community
Empowerment, His Honour Senator Reginald Farley – President
of the Senate, Members of the Diplomatic Corps, Members of
the Parliament of Barbados, Mrs. Yolande Howard – Permanent
Secretary of the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Community
Empowerment and other Permanent Secretaries, youth from
various youth and community organizations representatives of
all faith based organizations , ladies and gentlemen those who
are present with us today and those who are tuning in online
Good Evening, Friends, I have 2 questions for you to ponder on,
where do you want to go and what do you stand for?
And I am asking you these two questions because I remember
there was a time in my life where I didn’t know the power behind
having a dream, where I was constantly torn by people’s
opinions of me, where I was constantly in a battle with myself
and those around me but then I began to dream. I dream that
society wouldn’t have the power to determine my destiny and
the choices that I make today I must live and face the
consequences of tomorrow.
Friends, There is this constant divide in our society where our
boys and girls fail to dream of a future so bright based on the
environment in which they were brought up in or the mistakes
in which they have made. A divide where we, my friends are
scared of not being granted an opportunity based on the friends
we keep, the school we went to or the community in which we
live in and there is also the belief that you have to know someone
in order to rise to top or be given an opportunity and a chance
to make a difference.
But I say to you We, young people must brake outside the norms
of our society, we must brake down all barriers that prohibits our
progress and tend to keeps us in state of a physiological
reservation and as the Right Honorable Robert Nesta Marley
once said we must emancipate ourselves out of mental slavery.
Fortune has it that the current system we live in has set us up, it
has set us up that we as young people, our generation will inherit
a world so unreal that we will be then plagued with the realities
of fighting to survive, fighting to ensure that our children and our
children’s children have a future so bright that they can survive
and thrive. Friends, our system needs to change! Our dreams
should never be a fleeting illusion but a dream that becomes a
reality and must be pursued!
The impact of the climate crisis is that one reality that has open
up the minds and eyes of our young people globally to show us
that our future is in our hands.
Friends, As young people our identity perceives our participation
as once said by the late great Walter Rodney so friends, I ask you
another question what is your identity, what is your purpose,
what do you stand for and I say to you if you don’t believe in
something you will fall for any and everything. You must have an
identity of who you are they say we as young people have an
identity crisis, but that identity crisis is as a result of what we
have been taught and how our minds have been fashioned. This
is our reality check! We must forgive ourselves and create our
opportunity to dream again. We must not bury our talents our
talents must be utilized to our fullest potential. Let’s be the
changemakers of our society.
To all those who are using the gun as the preferred weapon of
choice to fight, let’s put your weapons down and fight with our
voices, let’s create peace, a peaceful Barbados where your
families wouldn’t have to be scared or share a thought of losing
you, a Barbados where we work together to ensure our
communities stay peaceful and thrive, Right about now look at
yourselves and envision the future you want to have and rise to
the occasion!
Today, right this moment our sentence of doubt ends, today our
sentence of vision, victory and emancipation thrives. Friends,
We fly, like a phoenix as we emerged from the fire and today we
are made stronger by what killed us yesterday.
There will always be people who wouldn’t understand what is
different but that wouldn’t and shouldn’t be an excuse to not
fight for your dreams and to stop dreaming, to stop being who
you are, and that’s what I will like to tell you all today to give
yourselves a hand, a round of applause. Be who you are. Be who
you want to be but never stop fighting for your dreams as they
come do through trust and believe me!
And I have a dream today that one day, we as young people
wouldn’t have to worry about the impact of climate change on
our lives, that we wouldn’t have to live in poverty or hunger, that
one day we as young people wouldn’t have to pull a chair up to
the table but would be given an opportunity to sit at head of the
decisions making table as leaders, as persons that will determine
our own destiny and not be followers in our own country but be
free and fully emancipated.
I will end with a quote by the Late Nelson Mandela who said
what counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is
what difference we have made to the lives of others. Thank you. “
Feature Address given by Ms. Ashley Lashley. 
Feature Address given by Ms. Ashley Lashley.
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