Motley Moose – Archive

President Obama traveled to Jamaica on Thursday and part of his visit included a trip to the Bob Marley Museum.

Barack and Jamrock

Jamaican smiles all around!

Oh, and he was also in Jamaica to launch his Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative (YLAI) to expand opportunities for emerging entrepreneurs and civil society activists. From a Town Hall:

Transcript below the fold.

Transcript: Remarks by President Obama in Town Hall with Young Leaders of the Americas

University of the West Indies

Kingston, Jamaica

2:55 P.M. EST

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  Greetings, massive!  (Laughter and applause.)  Wah gwaan, Jamaica?  (Applause.)  Can everybody please give Aubrey a big round of applause for the great introduction?  (Applause.)  I want to thank the University of the West Indies for hosting us.  Big up, You-Wee!  (Applause.)  Thank you.  I’ve been making myself at home here.  (Laughter.)

It is great to be in beautiful Jamaica — not only because I’m proud to be the first President of the United States to visit in more than 30 years, but because I just like the vibe here.  (Applause.)  I was born on an island, and it was warm, and so I feel right at home.

And I’m grateful for the warm Jamaican hospitality that I received this morning, including from Prime Minister Simpson-Miller.  I also had the chance to meet with leaders from across the Caribbean, where we focused on issues of shared prosperity and shared security.  And tomorrow, I’ll meet with leaders from across the hemisphere at the Summit of the Americas in Panama.

But before my trip became all business, I wanted to come here and hear from young people like you.  Because it is your generation who will shape the future of our countries and our region and this planet that we share long after those of us who are currently in public service are gone from the stage.  So I’m going to only speak for a few minutes at the top, because I’d rather spend time taking questions from you, and also because after we have a chance for our town hall, I get a chance to say hi to Usain Bolt and Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce.  (Applause.)  When you have the fastest people on the planet, you’ve got to say hi to them, right?  Because that’s fast.  (Laughter.)  There are a lot of people out there, and they’re the fastest.  

Now, we are not just nations, we’re also neighbors.  Tens of millions of Americans are bound to the Caribbean and the Americas through ties of commerce, but also ties of kin.  More than one million Americans trace their ancestry to Jamaica.  More than one million Americans visit Jamaica each year.  So we’re committed to you and this region.  And as I’ve said before, in our foreign policy there are no senior or junior partners in the Americas; there are just partners.

And that’s one reason why the United States has started a new chapter in our relations with the people of Cuba.  (Applause.)  We will continue to have some differences with the Cuban government, but we don’t want to be imprisoned by the past.  When something doesn’t work for 50 years, you don’t just keep on doing it; you try something new.  (Applause.)  And we are as committed as ever to supporting human rights and political freedom in Cuba and around the world.  But I believe that engagement is a more powerful force than isolation, and the changes we are making can help improve the lives of the Cuban people.  And I also believe that this new beginning will be good for the United States and the entire hemisphere.

My point is, I believe we can move past some of the old debates that so often define the region, and move forward in a way that benefits your generation with new thinking — an energetic, impatient, dynamic and diverse generation that you represent, both in the United States and across this hemisphere.  More than 100 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean are between the ages of 15 and 24.  Most of the region is under 35.

And what gives me so much hope about your generation is that you’re more interested in the hard work of waging peace than resorting to the quick impulses of conflict.  You’re more interested in the hard work of building prosperity through entrepreneurship, not cronyism or corruption.  (Applause.)  You’re more eager for progress that comes not by holding down any segment of society, but by holding up the rights of every human being, regardless of what we look like, or how we pray, or who we love.

You care less about the world as it has been, and more about the world as it should be and can be.  And unlike any other time in our history, the technology at your disposal means that you don’t have to wait for the change that you’re looking for; you have the freedom to create it in your own in powerful and disruptive ways.  Many of you already have, whether by starting your own enterprises or by helping others start theirs.

And I’m going to just single out two remarkable young leaders who are here today because I think they’re an example of what is possible, even in the most difficult of circumstances.

So Angeline Jackson is here today.  Where is Angeline?  There she is, right there.  (Applause.)  

Several years ago, when Angeline was 19, she and a friend were kidnapped, held at gunpoint and sexually assaulted.  And as a woman, and as a lesbian, justice and society were not always on her side.  But instead of remaining silent, she chose to speak out and started her own organization to advocate for women like her, and get them treatment and get them justice, and push back against stereotypes, and give them some sense of their own power.

And she became a global activist.  But more than anything, she cares about her Jamaica, and making it a place where everybody, no matter their color, or their class, or their sexual orientation, can live in equality and opportunity.  That’s the power of one person, what they can do.  (Applause.)  

Jerome Cowans grew up in a tough part of Kingston.  Where’s Jerome?  (Applause.)  When Jerome was 12, he saw a friend gunned down.  And when he looked at the shooters, he said, “I realized that wasn’t a life I wanted to live.  They had expensive machinery, but they had nothing else.”  So at the ripe old age of 13, he founded a youth group to help others like him stay on the right path.  And he started small, with only six people, but they had one big thing in common and they believed that change was possible.

And like Angeline, he was threatened for his work, but he kept at it.  And he said, “Things won’t get any better if no one does anything.”  And today, the LEAD Youth Club he started has six chapters, including one in Colombia.  His work has taken him to five continents.  Last year, he became the first Jamaican to receive the Nelson Mandela Innovation Award.  He’s just 25 years old.  (Applause.)

So individuals like those two young people — the young people here today — you remind me of something that Bob Marley once said.  You know I went to his house yesterday.  (Laughter.) I thought, I’m only five minutes from his house, I got to go check it out.  (Laughter.)  And one of the displays has to do when he was shot right before a concert he was supposed to give, trying to bring the political factions in Jamaica together.  And he was treated for his wounds and he went ahead with the program, went ahead with the show.  And somebody asked, well, why would you do that?  He said, “The people who are trying to make this world worse are not taking the day off.  Why should I?”  Why should I?  (Applause.)

So none of us can afford to take the day off.  And I want you to have every chance, every tool you need to make this world better.  So today I’m announcing nearly $70 million in U.S. investments in education, training, and employment programs for our young people throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.  (Applause.)  And these investments will help young people in unemployed and impoverished and marginalized communities, and give them a chance to gain the skills they need to compete and succeed in the 21st century economy.

And that’s not all.  As President, some of the initiatives I’m most proud of are ones that increase my country’s engagement with the next generation of leaders like Angeline and Jerome and all of you — leaders in government and civil society, and entrepreneurship and the private sector.  Four years ago, I launched an initiative called “100,000 Strong in the Americas.”  And the goal was to have 100,000 U.S. students studying in this region, and 100,000 of this region’s students studying in the United States by the end of this decade.  And we are on track to meet that goal.

So today, to build on that progress, I’m proud to launch the Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative right here in Kingston.  (Applause.)  Let me say this.  This is not your traditional exchange.  We’re going to seek out the most innovative young entrepreneurs and civil society leaders in the Caribbean, Latin America, and we’re going to give them a chance to earn a substantial continuum of the training and the resources and the connections, the networks and the capital that you need to make a difference.

So this year, we’ll bring two dozen entrepreneurs and civil society leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean — including young Cuban leaders — to the United States.  (Applause.)  Then next year, we’ll increase this fellowship to 250 young leaders.  And we’ll help you to expand your commercial and social ventures; we’ll embed you in an American business and incubators.  We’ll give U.S. participants the chance to continue their collaboration with you in your home countries.

So the idea is that you’ll get a chance to implement your ideas but now have linkages that give you access to capital and research and all the things you need to mobilize and implement the kinds of things that you’re doing.

And this isn’t charity for us.  This is an investment in your future, because that means it’s an investment in our future — a future where climate researchers in the Amazon can collaborate with scientists in Alaska.  An idea in Barbados suddenly can be developed in an incubator in Boston.  Anti-gang activities in Honduras can be connected to similar activities in Houston, Texas.  It’s a future where any kid from Kingston can choose a path that opens his or her horizons beyond their neighborhood to the wider world.  (Applause.)

And that impulse to make the world better, to push back on those who try to make it worse, that’s something that your generation has to hold on to.  And you have to remember, it’s never easy; there are no days off.  But if there’s one thing that I know from my own life, it’s that with hard work and with hope, change is always within our reach.

The Jamaican-American poet Claude McKay, who was a central figure of the Harlem renaissance, once wrote something along those lines:  “We must strive on to gain the height although it may not be in sight.”  As long as we’ve got young strivers like you — and I hope to see you in Washington as part of this Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative — I’m confident that a brighter future will always be in sight.

So thank you very much.  With that, let’s take some questions.  (Applause.)

All right, since we’re getting to work I’m going to take my jacket off and get comfortable.  All right.  There are no rules to this except that there are people with microphones in the audience, so wait for them to come when I call on you.  We’re going to go boy, girl, boy, girl so everybody gets a chance, so it’s fair.  (Laughter.)

Question and answer session (at the link) followed.