By Sir James Carlisle GCMG- Governor-General Emeritus
September 12, 2024 will go down in history as a day when many prayers were offered for God to intervene in our nation’s affairs. The Day of Prayer was in response to the worrying increase in crime especially among young men.
As a follow-up, the Honourable Gaston Browne met with gang leaders and participated in a football match with them. In doing so he showed that he was willing to meet the young men where they are at.
Many of these youngsters have re-entered the education system. I have no doubt that they will succeed if they are given the necessary support and encouragement. Teachers, parents and members of the wider society must work together.
The Police have stepped up their activities. Several guns have been confiscated and a number of arrests made. Despite what has been done, crime has continued to rise. It is an indication that there is still more work to be done.
I believe that church leaders of every denomination can play an even bigger role in helping to resolve this problem. The re-introduction of prayers in schools is a good start but every effort should be made to encourage our young people to attend church. Research has shown that church attendance is associated with greater life satisfaction, among other things.
There are those who will say that when we acquire education, God should be taken out of the picture. They prefer to listen to the advice of atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. But I would like to remind them that Francis Collins who led the Human Genome Project is a firm believer in God. He is a more eminent scientist than Dawkins or Hitchens.
As we celebrate the 43rd Anniversary of independence, let us remind ourselves of the admonition given by the Apostle Paul given in 1Thessalonians 5:17. “Pray without ceasing.” Our nation needs prayer all the time.
Sir James Carlisle GCMG- Governor-General Emeritus
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There is a major thing that is lacking, providing those community supported activities for these yourhs to stay busy doing things we have no problems with.
Every village should have a music class, teaching youths to play their favorite instrument (for me, it was drum, guitar, pan, but nothing was available in Bolans), providing the youths with activities center (game room to learn to play and code games), center to meet their local celebrities (local, regional and international sports, entertainment and political stars).
More sporting activities that provide motivation to succeed like payments and awards after winning, airing the sports event on TV and try to sell broadcasting to sport channels, scholarship awards, etcetera.
Job practice awards to get youths to shadow/follow someone in their field, to learn about what career they are in love with, etcetera.
These avenues should have been employed first, before taking away the rights and liberty of youths by implementing curfews teaching our youths to accept and be comfortable in a prison. Conditioning them to imprisonment.
Community to make youths feel as if they are the ones who made the right decision of coming off the street and following a better path and not for them to feel forced or is forced into a decision. I promise there is a high likelihood of rebellion for this.
There are so many options and strategies that could have been used prior to curfew which is a last resort and emergency tactic. The lack of intelligence and creativity makes incompetence in these areas think criminalizing people are the only way to solve a problem. They are lazy and incompetent.
I would give the PM credit for meeting those youths, that is an option that comes before curfews. There are others, as listed above here.