Mother’s birthday morphs into mourning over slaying of daughter

Vanessa Clarke should have been celebrating her birthday on Friday, but in a cruel twist of fate, the mother spent hours in the pews of Pentecostal Tabernacle mourning the death of her 16-year-old daughter, Michion Campbell, who was stabbed to death by a schoolmate late last month.

The Kingston Technical High School community gathered at the Wildman Street, downtown Kingston-based church for the memorial service of the slain cadet, who was, among other things, described as “loud and outrageous but caring”.

As tears stained the face of Clarke, who was at times consoled by her young daughter, Lola, Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) President Milton Brown shone the spotlight on delinquent parents, who play no active role in the lives of their children.

In the same breath, Brown pressed Education Minister Fayval Williams to push her Cabinet colleague, Finance and Public Service Minister Dr Nigel Clarke, to fast-track the paternity leave legislation.

“It would help in some of the issues we're having where fathers are not in the lives of their children. It is high time that we have paternity leave. It is also high time that we have parental leave. It cannot be left up to the discretion of the employer,” the PTA president charged.

“When we have those legislation and we have those policies, then employers have to give us, as parents, the time off to be involved in our children's lives,” Brown added.

Still, he said the absence of legislation does not absolve parents from their responsibilities in caring for their children, suggesting that the ills spilling over in schools most times come from a place of little guidance and discipline.

Michion was stabbed multiple times during a reported dispute with another female student on September 29 at the school.

That student, a 17-year-old fifth-former, has been charged with murder.

“As parents, we have a responsibility to our children and so I'm making an appeal to our parents – not only to Kingston Technical High School, but across the length and breadth of Jamaica – that we have to do more.

“We have to go back to the days where it takes a village to raise a child. I, as a father, alone cannot do it because I only have two eyes and it's only one me … . So I have to laud those teachers who are nurses, counsellors, banks; they are everything to these students,” he said.