For Our Youth, Leaders of Today and Tomorrow

It is my honor to address UNESCO’s Youth Forum which is an opportunity to transmit some of my ideas to our global communities, areas in which I have been engaged at universities, colleges, youth groups, and institutions over the years.
Fundamental to my thesis is that the youth of today should be looked upon and trained to be the leaders of today and tomorrow.
This has been the subject of my book entitled – The Triangle of Success: For our Youth, Leaders of Tomorrow.
It is through the deliberate molding of our youth to assume responsible leadership roles in our communities and our societies that we can hope to achieve human understanding and peace within our communities, regions, and our world at large.
We must therefore involve our youth in a process of actualization of their god-given creativity which
would result in an inner
and manifest expression of love and peace for our fellow men.
We must therefore strive to inspire, motivate, and empower them to achieve their potential, leading to success with an implicit manifestation and commitment to the attainment of peace within our communities, societies and our world.
This has been the subject of my book and lecture series to leaders where setting goals, belief in self and dedication to productive and constructive work, constitute the fundamental components of a triangular configuration leading to success.
UNESCO’s Youth Forums represent a commitment of our global institution working towards a world of peace.
Our future in this regard, our citadel of peace must be built upon solid foundations or rocks with building blocks of our youth of today coming from all corners of our world.
My presence here today is testimony, in living manifestation that it is possible to come from a small island like St Lucia with a population of less than 200 thousand to become a member of the Executive Board of UNESCO; that
it is possible to become a leader in ones community, to become a Senator in ones government, and Ambassador to the United Nations, The Organization of American States, and the United States of America; to become a Phytonematologist, a poet, an author, an artist and to address youth forums internationally.
Through this forum I am making my book on youth leadership available to UNESCO and I look forward to its translation into different languages for our youth leaders of today and tomorrow.
In you there is an enormous potential to change our world as you are now doing, to invent new things, inject new ideas and act in the best interest of humanity; to unleash your enormous potential through continuous education; commitment to preserving our environment and many areas in education, science, technology, and culture; all of which are the noble goals of UNESCO.
I take this opportunity to
extol the exaltations of our Director General in her vision for a new humanism which is, among other things, a call for all of us to embrace the human dimension of man as a responsible agent of peace in our world.
I would therefore like to take advantage of this opportunity to read a modified stanza of my poem entitled Extended Hands from my book of poems entitled Many Horizons.

We must reach out beyond ourselves
Extending both hands and minds
Across latitudes and longitudes
In a global embrace
Joining other hands and minds
In love and peace for all
The fermentation of this vision is in the hands of our youth.  Upon you, our youth, will rest the future of our tomorrows.

Editor’s note: The above was delivered at Unesco Youth Forum.  The book
“The Triangle of Success; For our Youth, Leaders of Tomorrow” by J. Edsel Edmunds referred to above, has been translated
into French for  the
French speaking countries
of Africa and the Caribbean.
It is now available through
the publisher Author
House, amazon.com, Barns and Noble and other book outlets.  It is also available as a Kindle eBook.