By RICARDO WELLS

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

THE future for the Free National Movement (FNM) was on display last night as the party kicked off its two-night youth convention at the SuperClubs Breezes Resort.

The event acted as a launch for several key initiatives compiled by members of the Torchbearers Youth Association (TYA).

With the party looking to rebrand itself as the political organisation of choice for young voters, the FNM through its stock of youthful candidates gave a glimpse into many of the ideas touted by the party over the course of the last few months, as scores of supporters packed the Cable Beach resort.

In what could be viewed as the strongest segment of the night, the party’s Bain and Grants Town candidate, 22-year-old Travis Robinson, delivered a speech built around the plight of young Bahamians - imploring the demographic to value the electoral power it possesses and to use it to effect the change they want to see.

To exuberant cheers and screams of support, Mr Robinson - who will vie for election against Progressive Liberal Party mainstay, 71-year-old Bernard Nottage - said the FNM had aligned itself with the young people of the Bahamas and remains dedicated to building a modern country able to sustain and develop innovative ideas.

“When it comes to the development and wellbeing of young people in this country, let me tell you that this is not only my mission but, my passion,” declared the University of Bahamas student.

Mr Robinson said the mandate of securing a quality future for the Bahamas is “personal” to him. He added that his own struggle as an inner-city youth from Bain and Grants Town to strive despite initial setbacks can be viewed as a success, but lamented that there were hundreds of others from the same setting with less fortunate outcomes.

“And like me, many of you live in communities that are crime hot-spots. You live in a place where walking a few street corners at the wrong moment in time can either put you in the intensive care unit, or place you in a shallow grave. You are surrounded by impending danger; illegal firearms and drugs lie wait in many of the abandoned buildings and graffiti parks you so often come across on your day-to-day walk. Indeed, the opportunities of a child growing up in the inner cities of Bain Town, Centreville, Kemp Road or Nassau Village are entirely different from a child growing up in other areas of our society.

“That difference can shape young people’s lives and their lives prospects from the moment they are born and that was certainly the case for me.”

Mr Robinson added: “Instead of looking forward, towards their future, our nation’s youth are forced to look over their shoulder in fear of being jumped. Today, young people are afraid to walk alone because they might get held up, they are afraid to walk in groups because they might be mistakenly identified as a gang. We are swiftly becoming a society where a funeral for a murdered teenager is considered unfortunate but not unusual, where visiting a friend in another area or even standing on your own front porch makes you vulnerable. These are the odds so many of our young people face daily.”

Despite the dire outlook, Mr Robinson went on to state that the FNM, if elected, will establish in the Ministry of Labour a white and blue-collar registry list for young professionals as a means of monitoring and selecting from the country’s pool of young skilled workers with the intent to prevent a national brain-drain.