KINGSTON, Jamaica — United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Jamaica has appointed a new Children and Youth Council (CYC), reinforcing its commitment to ensuring children and young people from across the island have a meaningful voice in decisions that affect their lives.

Ten parishes are represented among the selected 17 candidates, highlighting geographic diversity across communities.

UNICEF Jamaica says this broad representation underscores UNICEF’s focus on ensuring that youth leadership and advocacy extend beyond urban centres and reflect the lived experiences of young people nationwide.

The appointments follow a rigorous multi‑stage selection process that attracted more than 250 applications from across the island. Approximately 50 candidates were shortlisted and interviewed. Most applicants were 16–20 years old, with the majority between 17 and 19, capturing a critical stage of emerging leadership and civic engagement. The final 17 members were selected based on leadership potential, community involvement and alignment with UNICEF’s values.

Welcoming the incoming cohort, in a statement on Tuesday, UNICEF representative Olga Isaza noted, “Young people are powerful agents of change. The UNICEF Children and Youth Council was created to place them at the centre of advocacy, programme design and policy dialogue, strengthening their role as key partners in advancing child rights and ensuring that their ideas, experiences and leadership help shape the programmes and policies designed to support them.”

UNICEF Jamaica said the new CYC members, representing diverse backgrounds, will also serve as the steering committee for U-Report Jamaica, UNICEF’s digital engagement platform, helping to promote the voices of young people islandwide.

Ensuring that the experiences and perspectives of children and youth meaningfully inform UNICEF’s programmes and national advocacy is one of the core objectives of the CYC. They will also be involved in representing the voices of their peers, building their leadership and advocacy skills and enabling participation in decision-making by creating formal mechanisms for young people to contribute to strategic planning, campaigns and policy recommendations.

The council will operate through sub‑groups aligned with UNICEF Jamaica’s programme priorities, including child protection, climate action and resilience, education, social policy and health. Guided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, these sub-groups ensure youth perspectives inform solutions at the local, national and international levels.

UNICEF Jamaica welcomed the new cohort and said it looks forward to working alongside them to advance child rights and strengthen youth participation, empowering the next generation of youth leaders and advocates across the country.