The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has kicked off a groundbreaking regional capacity-building initiative designed to elevate youth development work across the bloc, with an estimated 180 youth-focused professionals set to gain critical skills over the next 24 months.
Officially launched in June 2026 under the full title “Strengthening the Youth Development Landscape: A Capacity Building Programme for Strategic and Sustainable Action,” the programme targets youth directors, frontline youth officers, and community youth leaders from all CARICOM member states, according to an official press release from the CARICOM Secretariat.
Delivered entirely through online platforms to ensure broad accessibility across the geographically scattered Caribbean region, the training curriculum focuses on equipping participants with hands-on, practical expertise to build, run, and maintain high-impact youth-focused initiatives. Core training modules cover a wide range of in-demand skills, including end-to-end project design, compelling grant proposal development, systematic project monitoring and evaluation, adaptive leadership development, mental health first aid for young populations, and strategic use of social media to boost youth engagement.
The CARICOM Secretariat notes that the new programme was developed in direct response to two key trends shaping the region’s youth sector: rapidly shifting challenges facing Caribbean young people, and rising demand from member states for stronger institutional and professional capacity to address those challenges.
Michele Small Bartley, the CARICOM Secretariat’s Youth Development Programme Manager, underscored the critical value of investing in the professionals who directly design and deliver youth services across the region. “As youth development issues continue to emerge and become more complex, there is a growing need to equip key youth stakeholders with the knowledge, skills, and practical tools required to design, implement, monitor, and sustain effective programmes and interventions that respond to the needs of our young people,” Bartley explained in the press statement.
Beyond upskilling individual practitioners, the initiative is also strategically aligned to advance broader regional youth development goals: it supports the rollout of the updated CARICOM Youth Development Action Plan (CYDAP) and the regional Youth Development Index, while working to strengthen the institutional frameworks of youth-serving organizations across all member states.
Looking ahead, the CARICOM Secretariat outlines a clear long-term vision for the programme: to build a connected, well-resourced network of youth practitioners who have the skills and resources to lead innovative, sustainable youth programmes, and advance a resilient, forward-thinking youth development agenda that meets the evolving needs of Caribbean communities for years to come.