The Commonwealth People’s Forum (CPF) must be left free of any ’incursions’ because the people’s voice must be heard, social activist Hazel Brown declared yesterday.

Brown, who is the coordinator of the local organising committee for the upcoming civil society forum, said any attempts made to censor the voices coming out of the CPF would not be tolerated.

She was speaking yesterday at the national consultation hosted in preparation for the upcoming CPF which is to be held this year at the Cascadia Hotel Conference Centre in St Ann’s from November 23 to the 26. Yesterday’s consultation was held at the Bishop Anstey High School in Port of Spain.

The CPF is the largest gathering of Commonwealth civil society and is held during the week preceding the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) which will be held in Port of Spain In November.

Brown said the CPF was a very important ’space for the people of the Common Wealth’ since it provides civil society with an opportunity to debate and discuss the issues that affect them. These issues are then distilled into a communique which is presented at the Pre-CHOGM Foreign Minister’s meeting.

Brown called on civil society groups to band together and make every effort to shield ’this very important People’s space’ from the ’incursions that will attempt to shut us down...or incursion that will attempt to water down the genuine civil society representation. Let us find our voice and express the genuine civil society expression because this is our space, the people’s space.’ She said civil society groups in this country must also put aside their differences and work together in order to make the best of the People’s Forum.

Brown said yesterday’s consultations would inform the agenda of the CPF which will focus on a number of issues among them Human rights, Conflict and Peace Building, Health, HIV/AIDS, Environment and Climate Change and Financial crisis and Economic Development. Brown also said that other consultations have been held in Sangre Grande, San Fernando, Chaguanas and Tobago and their outcomes documented.

Alicia Hospedales, Minister of State in the Ministry of Social Development, who also addresssed the participants at yesterday’s consultations, said government was committed to partnering and working with along with civil society. She said that yesterday’s consultation hosted in preparation for the CPF was ’very important’.

’A succesful people’s forum can herald a successful CHOGM,’ Hospedales said.