No better counsel comes from anywhere outside the churches – Chang

WESTERN BUREAU:

National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang is urging the church community to ensure that it plays its part in raising young people to be upstanding citizens, even as he vows that the authorities will continue to work with the Church in developing a law-abiding society.

Addressing the West Jamaica Conference of Seventh-day Adventists’ [WJC] Western Leadership Conference and the launch of the conference’s 80th anniversary celebration in Mt Salem, Montego Bay, on Sunday, Chang noted that the Church has traditionally served as an anchor of morality in the community.

“The Church can play a crucial role in parenting and guidance, because with young individuals who are having children and don’t understand parenting, we have lost the old order where grandmothers provided that nucleus of the Jamaican extended family. They have lost the connection with that elderly lady, who we call the grandmother, who might say, ‘Live good, pickney’; and going to church on Sunday and Saturday morning, they would be there to guide them,” said Chang.

“We certainly have to provide an alternative, and hence we are looking at how we can ensure guidance and counselling and parenting services to a wider cross section [of society]. In that capacity, we look forward to working closely with the churches, because no better counsel comes from anywhere outside the churches,” Chang added.

The minister cited the ongoing construction of a child and adolescent therapeutic centre in St James as an example of the counselling resources which are needed to divert young people, particularly young men, away from crime and violence and towards honest labour and respect for law and order.

Scamming challenge

Chang, referenced the lottery scam which has been a commonplace criminal activity in western Jamaica for several years.

“Scamming is difficult, as the participants earn plenty money easily, and therefore it’s not easy to re attract them to what they should do. But they know it’s a challenging life, and it can be very short and brutal. So it is a matter of guiding them in a different way so they can achieve a decent quality of life in an honest way, and that means training and counselling,” said Chang.“We will work with the churches as we move to establish in Montego Bay what we call a child and adolescent guidance centre and family service, because we view the family, like the Church does, as the fundamental unit of community. That single mother who needs help with training and whose children need to be counselled, or the son at nine years old who saw his father shot in the community, they need guidance and support, and that’s what we’re looking to do with this kind of facility,” Chang explained.

SOCIAL INVOLVEMENT

The therapeutic centre, which will be housed inside a renovated structure along Humber Avenue in Montego Bay at a cost of $110 million, is slated to address the needs of youngsters who exhibit abnormal behaviours. It will benefit some 22,600 children across St James and surrounding areas on completion, with special focus on at-risk youth living in communities under zones of special operations. It will also provide support for their parents.

In the meantime, WJC President Pastor Glen Samuels stressed at Sunday’s meeting that the Church’s primary responsibility is to serve the community, particularly the needy and less fortunate, as opposed to leaving the upholding of right-doing only to law enforcement.

“We believe that we cannot police our way out of the nation’s social ills. We cannot build enough jail cells, and we cannot put enough police officers on every street corner to keep our community safe. And so, we challenge the Church to continue what it has been doing and to build on what it has been doing, that of connecting with the homes in our community, of assisting single parents in helping to better grow their young, fatherless and, in some cases, motherless children. The Church’s social involvement is even now more vital than at any other point in Jamaica’s history,” said Samuels.

During the upcoming year-long celebration of the WJC’s 80 years as a conference, plans for its celebration include the provision of 80 scholarships to needy students between high-school and tertiary education level. Churches within the conference’s territory, to include St James, Hanover, Westmoreland and St Elizabeth, are also being challenged to adopt 80 needy families during the period.