Educational Campaign is Important

As we mentioned, for the next 18 months the People’s Constitution Commission (PCC) will be deliberating how Belize’s constitution will be altered to represent all sectors of society. The Chair of the Commission, Anthony Chanona, explained that one of the most important roles of the PCC is to inform the Belizean people about the role and importance of the country’s constitution.

Anthony Chanona, Chairman, People’s Constitution Commission: “I think the education exercise would be disrespectful to the Belizean people if we don’t first educate them as to what this exercise is about. But the workshop meetings planned for the 8th and the 14th is intended to create a work plan and roadmap and then we need to develop the message and then we need to find the logistics of getting the message out. Fortunately today which Dr.Vernon did not have in 1999 is we have the use of technology and so absolutely we cannot begin this exercise of consultations without first trying to educate the people of Belize what it is about, what it is this constitutional commission is intended to do. We are our greatest strength. I mean when you look at the face of the commission there’s a lot of youthful energy, a lot of experience and so among ourselves is to develop where the strengths are, train the trainers and develope the message to take out so we are going to look within ourselves for that strength and build on it and 70% of the population of Belize is thirty five years and younger so we need to develop in that education package a message that will resonate with the youths other than maybe what is on the Instagram or the Facebook page. But we certainly believe that that is the way we want to go forward building on the assets we have within the PCC.”