Conferences & Big Events
The Department of Youth Services has always seen the need for youth empowerment. While this is ensured in our daily activities and trainings, there are bigger events that have not only put our country on the map, but has also maximized opportunities for young people to express their needs in inclusivity as it relates to leadership matters.
Below are past international youth conferences and events that DYS has led or co-led within the last 5 years:
Caribbean Youth Leader's Summit 2016
The Caribbean Youth Leaders Summit aimed to provide a unique opportunity for young leaders, youth development practitioners, academics and policymakers to meet together to discuss research and programming priorities and capacity building workshops for youth in the Agenda 2030: Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Participants from across the Caribbean region and the wider world offered speeches, research papers, training workshops, assessments of good practice and cultural presentations at the Summit.
World Youth Conference 2017
The World Youth Conference 2017 convened national, regional and international youth leaders under the theme: "Globally running to 2030, Becoming Sustainably Strong". It provided a platform for youth leaders to evaluate the past, by tasking
participants to acquire knowledge of their countries commitments to the Sustainable Developments Goals and their respective implementation strategies. What concluded from that was the Mahogany Declaration that formed realistic guidelines for our youth organizations and overall countries could use to facilitate the goals of the SDGs by 2030.
See document here:
Youth Mainstreaming 2019
The Department of Youth Services partnered with the Commonwealth Secretariat to put in place a strategy for youth mainstreaming in Belize.
Youth mainstreaming is a coordinated, all-of-government approach that enables equitable, social, economic, political and ecological outcomes for young people. This required strategic youth sector initiatives that engage comprehensively and substantively with holistic, youth-centric planning processes, and that brings young people’s aspirations and voices to the forefront in national planning.
Taiwan Belize It --- Friendship Run 2019
The Department of Youth Services and the National Sports Council in collaboration with the Embassy of the Republic of China (Taiwan) hosted a 2K and 5K Track Race to commemorate thirty(30) years of friendship between our nations.
Belize Youth Awards
The Belize Youth Awards (BYA) demonstrates to leaders and other policy-makers the importance of young people’s role in development. BYA also serves to inspire other young people to take action in their communities. Annually, the Department of Youth Services looks for young people aged between 15 and 29 years of age, who have demonstrated the importance of youth participation in key areas such as poverty alleviation, conflict resolution and prevention, democracy and environmental preservation, education, health and well-being, human rights, technology, sport, science and contributing to the overall achievement of our very own National Youth Development Policy, Horizon 2030, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) .
