- COMMONWEALTH TO LAUNCH INTERNATIONAL YOUTH FOOTBALL TOURNAMENT IN MEMORY OF SAINT LUCIA’S HENRY CHARLES
Monday, July 8, 2024, marked the first anniversary of the untimely passage of the Saint Lucia-born former Director of the Commonwealth Youth Program (CYP), Dr. Henry Wallace Charles. Dr. Charles was a trailblazer in youth development in Saint Lucia and was instrumental in establishing the National Youth Council (NYC). As a positive national youth force in the 1970s and 1980s, Dr Charles left Saint Lucia early in the 21st Century to head the CYP’s Caribbean program in Guyana, where he served for many years.
As a result of his success across the Caribbean, the Commonwealth leadership invited Dr Charles to London and appointed him Director of the CYP globally, with responsibility for promoting youth and sports development in all of the Commonwealth’s 56 member-states.
Throughout his term as Director of the CYP, Dr Charles specialized in the promotion of ‘Peaceful Conflict Resolution’ across the Caribbean as evidence emerged of externally influenced negative cultural forms, including gang violence, taking serious proportions at schools and in communities across the region.
In Dr. Charles’ honour, the Commonwealth Secretariat in London is preparing to launch an international Henry Charles Youth Football Tournament, to be held across all of the Commonwealth’s member-states. The tournament will be officially launched simultaneously, in October 2024, in London and Saint Lucia.
The Government of Saint Lucia, which was looking forward to sharing Dr Charles’ services when he returned home a year ago, naturally and anxiously looks forward to supporting this international Youth Football Tournament in his name.
The Government of Saint Lucia applauds this honorable initiative to ensure the legacy of Dr. Henry Charles lives on worldwide.
Prime Minister Hon. Philip J. Pierre, who as Castries East MP also represents the Entrepot community where Dr Charles lived as a youth, calls on Castries East and communities across Saint Lucia, to look out for the local leg of this global youth football tournament.
