Over the last 9 days, since the Belize Constitution (Eleventh Amendment) Bill started making the evening news, you've been hearing what politicians, parliamentarians, and civil society organizations think about it. But, what do regular Belizeans have to say on the subject?
That's the group of citizens who activist "Yaya" Marin-Coleman hopes to engage in a series of 4 webinars. She and a diverse group of civilians, who call themselves the Belizean 11th Amendment Working Group, want to conduct a mature discussion about the government's latest draft bill. They are offering a safe space to discuss the pros and cons of the proposed amendment. As we told you, the draft legislation seeks to bar citizens from running for elected office in Parliament, if they have served a prison sentence of more than a year in or outside of Belize.
Today, 2 of the organizers spoke with 7News via Zoom, and they explained why they hope that regular folks like you will join them:
Carolyn "Yaya" Marin Coleman, Chairperson, UBAD Educational Foundation
"Using the Human Right Commission of Belize Zoom platform, we saw the need to create a safe for Belizeans to know what the 11th Amendment Bill is and how it may impact Belizeans in particular African black Belizeans if this bill is passed. Again, you saw where the government has been systematic negligent in not creating safe spaces to engage Belizeans, listen to Belizeans with respect, answer questions, say we don't know something if we don't know, find the answers, come back and so that's the vibration similarly to what lead earlier last year when Covid19 vaccine and Covid 19 pandemic first came to Belize and so we see the need to have these kinds of engagements."
Bilal Morris, Representative, Belize Diaspora
"We are trying to create a educational space. A space where Belizeans who are concern about the 11th Amendment and its ramifications, its consequences in terms of discussing it, the pros and cons of it. What it is about and how will it affect Belizeans both at home and abroad. We want to have a detail discussion in terms of that, because we have found out that most of the time many of these amendments like the 7th amendments was dealt with from a top down position. Where it came from the politicians and directly down to the people. We are taking a reverse position in terms of from a bottom up, from discussing it from amongst the people itself. Having a group of concern people that can discuss the bill and discuss the details of the bill, what are the consequences that the bill or the amendment is going to create and then from that we can then educate the Belizean people, the majority, the grassroots Belizean people."
Carolyn "Yaya" Marin Coleman
"Success for me will be determined on who shows up and how you best represent yourself when you show up."
As you heard, these webinars begin tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. The discussion will then continue on July 17th, July 24, and July 31st. You can find the join link to the Zoom webinar on Krem Sunday Review's Facebook page.
