Immigration, education, healthcare highlights of youth summit

Residency for contract workers, the persistent shortage of teachers and healthcare specialists, and funding transparency are just some of the issues in the CNMI that were highlighted by young voices at the 2015 Close-Up Youth Summit.

Participants in the 2015 Close-Up Youth Summit listen to a speech by a lawmaker at the Hibiscus Hall of the Fiesta Resort and Spa Saipan. (Frauleine S. Villanueva)

Thirty-nine high school students from both public and private schools gathered for this year’s summit at the Fiesta Resort and Spa last Wednesday and Thursday.

According to Public School System social studies coordinator Patricia Sablan, students from Tinian and Rota weren’t able to attend as their flights were cancelled due to the unfavorable weather conditions last week.

“There were supposed to be 60 from the whole CNMI,” Sablan said.

The Close-Up Youth Summit is a component of the Close-Up Insular Areas Program. It is designed to demonstrate how the U.S. model of democracy functions and to foster the interest, knowledge, and skills needed to effectively participate in a democracy. It also addresses the academic needs of insular areas and provides training and materials to improve teachers’ civic education skills. 

The three-day event also had to be compressed to two due but the students were no less than productive and enthusiastic in creating their youth agenda for CNMI policy action.

The group was divided into committees: on cultural affairs and immigration, education and schools, environment, energy and natural resources, economic development and budget, health and welfare, and law enforcement and public safety.

Each of the committees developed a set of policy proposals to address concerns in the Commonwealth, 10 of which they presented to members of the 19th Legislature and discussed with senators and representatives.

In one of the proposals, the youth’s Committee on Cultural Affairs and Immigration requested the Legislature “to petition [the federal government] for a bill regarding residency for nonresident immigrant workers who fall under the contract worker visa program.”

“I thought that this was an important topic ever since. Ninety percent of the workforce is from the private sector and 90 percent of the workers are nonimmigrant or CW workers. If they leave in 2019, the CNMI’s economy will gradually fall and there wouldn’t be enough people to work [on] this island,” youth cultural affairs and immigration committee chair Jayrald Mercene of Marianas High School said.

Ann Margaret Norcio, also from MHS, was part of the economic development and budget committee.

“It was a very challenging committee to work with because the economic budget had to deal with all the other six committees because in order for the other committees to be passed or be enacted, there had to be a specific funding or budget for that,” Norcio said.

Their committee focused on funding issues for tourism, gambling and infrastructure, which they really had to do a lot of research.

“What we recently found out was that throughout the years there has been a lot of budget cuts in the CNMI and we had to work on that,” Norcio said.

Close-Up curriculum and training manager Nikki Ulrich said she is always inspired and amazed by the students’ ideas.

“I was also really impressed with their critical thinking, working through really complex ideas for young people to address and their commitment to seeing those proposals through and confidence in presenting them to what could be an intimidating group of 12 people on the stage,” facilitator and Close-Up curriculum and training specialist Lauren Ebersole said.

Close-Up is a Washington-based non-profit organization that educates and inspires young people to become informed and active citizens.  Close-Up programs help students develop the skills, knowledge, and attitudes necessary to engage in American democracy.