P.C.C.’s Public Education & Consultation Launch

Anthony Chanona

Today at the Biltmore Plaza Hotel in Belize City, interested parties of the People’s Constitution Commission gathered for the Public Education and Consultation Launch. The launch of the constitution education booklet includes “A Guide to Belize Constitution”, “The Fundamental Rights of the People of Belize”, and “A Brief Summary of the Belize Constitution Volume.” P.C.C. Chair Anthony Chanona says that these tools will play part in the way forward. The expectation is that it will tear down the barrier of having limited knowledge of the constitution.

Anthony Chanona, Chair, People’s Constitution Commission

“We’ve always been able to arrive at consensus in the decision-making, so I believe we are now at the point to begin to engage the people. And as I said earlier, the voice of the people is the voice of God; Philip Goldson reminded us of that. And so, I believe that when we start taking to the people, especially the young people, I have great expectation. Because we are going to interface with the Ministry of Education and have access to all that database, when these young people start to wrap their minds around apps, debates, essays, poster competitions, logo competitions, you’re going to see the energy released from sixty-two percent of our population twenty-five years and younger. We have one set of citizen survey questions that will be common across all the zones; the talking points will be common across the zones. We have to have consistency in the messaging otherwise we will create some chaos and confusion. So we are going to standardize the messaging and these zones are going to, the Statistical Institute of Belize will train them and we will onboard them with all the resources and then they use the culture of their zones.”