A call by Betty Ann Blaine, convener of the advocacy group Hear the Children's Cry, for Prime Minister Andrew Holness to convene an emergency child summit, aimed at improving the welfare of the nation's children, has found favour with key...
No matter how often gunshots rang out in the volatile east Kingston community called Dunkirk where she lived, or how small her mother's salary was as a domestic helper, Michelle Gordon and her two brothers were aware that attending school was one...
Like most of the country's 4,600 children in state care, Kimmy-Lee* will be spending today away from her biological parents and with an extended family made up of some of Jamaica's most vulnerable citizens.But if last...
Bridget Thompson-Dunkley has a lot to celebrate today because after 13 years of trying to have a child and hosting several fundraising initiatives to finance in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment, she has finally given birth to triplets.Thompson-...
December has traditionally been a dangerous time for road users, but head of the Police Traffic Division, Senior Superintendent Calvin Allen, is vowing that the cops will take every measure to ensure that motorists comply with the rules this time...
For most of this year, 30-year-old Carla* slept with a knife under her pillow as her husband had threatened to kill her.Carla said he had made two previous attempts to carry out this threat and she was taking no chance this time around.But after...
Some Jamaicans are being asked to pay as much as $200,000 to ex-lovers and hackers, who are threatening to expose their nude photos and sex tapes to family and friends.Assistant Commissioner of Police Clifford Chambers said 31 victims of this latest...
As a HIV-positive transgender youth, 22-year-old *Tory belongs to the at-risk group that is considered to be most in need of intervention if Jamaica has any hope of seeing further reductions in the number of persons living with HIV/AIDS.According to...
Jamaicans almost universally believe in the value of physical activity to their health and more than two-thirds of them say they regularly engage in some form of recreation.Yet, across all age groups, people do not seem to believe they are doing...
It has been more than two years now since *Pamela Jackson's doctor detected a lump in her breast and suggested she get a mammogram, but the 59-year-old household worker is yet to follow through on this advice."He said there was a lump and I should...
More than 60 children are diagnosed with cancer annually, but at least one expert in the treatment of paediatric cancer believes that there is very little a parent can do to prevent this.Dr Michelle Reece-Mills, who is one of only two paediatric...
As if losing her husband to liver cancer wasn't heartbreaking enough, Christine Campbell's emotions and finances took another battering when her 15-year old-son was diagnosed and died from colon cancer a few months afterwards.The mother, who wept as...
More than a year after the use of ganja as a sacrament was made legally permissible, Rastafarian priests across Jamaica are still waiting for the state to register their churches so that they can freely utilise the herb as part of their worship...
His two baby girls were just seven and four years old when they were placed in state care, but the heartbreaking experience of temporarily losing his children was what helped to reinforce for Evon Pollack the value of being a parent.Both girls were...
The United Nations (UN) Committee on Human Rights has raised concerns about the sustainability of the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), given the fact that a substantial amount of the organisation's budget is funded by...
The massive damage unleashed on Haiti by Hurricane Matthew has conjured painful memories for Marie Solette Rameau Compere, who left the country in 2010 with her three children after a devastating earthquake destroyed everything they owned.Although...
At two months' pregnant, *Simone Black had to jump through a window at the Armadale Correctional Centre to save her life and that of her unborn child after a fire broke out at the facility in 2009, which resulted in seven deaths.At the time, she was...
The failure of state agencies to complete several projects for which money had already been allocated could have seen the public health sector wobbling if Jamaica had been hit by Hurricane Matthew last week.As the nation braced for Matthew, Health...
Wesley Boynes, president of the Jamaica Independent Schools' Association (JISA), has estimated that more than 300 private schools across the island have been shuttered in the last five years.According to Boynes, many other private schools are on the...
The Bellevue Hospital has paid more than $31 million in water bills since the start of the year, but it appears that a large portion of the commodity has gone to persons not associated with the medical facility.A Sunday Gleaner probe has confirmed...
Special Olympian Lucy Meyer knows at first hand that sports can break down barriers, and this is the message she has been sharing as she meets with world leaders such as United States President Barack Obama, government senators, school officials...
Tributes continued to pour in yesterday in honour of the late Jamaica Observer Associate Editor Ingrid Brown, whose work over the years had won her numerous awards and the respect of her colleagues in the profession and the wider society.The 39-year...
More than eight months after the first reported case of the Zika virus in Jamaica and a public advisory for women to delay pregnancies, local health officials are finding that some women are choosing to ignore the warning and exercise what they...
A local study has found that approximately 70 per cent of domestic disputes are centred around finances, and while men are more likely to physically abuse women, it is the women who are generally more likely to instigate the conflict.The recently...
