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| Letter
of the Day
March 13, 2000
THE EDITOR, Madam: An army of street boys! WHILE THE saga of 'The Rich and the Powerful' continues (namely the Bank of Jamaica pay scandal) there is one time bomb which if not defused shortly will explode with devastating effects. Have you noticed the increase in the numbers of boys on our streets? According to Hon. Babsy Grange the total number of street boys is estimated at 10,000! This is a staggering figure! We saw the problem mushrooming over the past 10-15 years. What structured approach to the problem did the Government adopt during this period? The same question ought to be asked of us in Christendom. The answer to this question will, I suspect, be an embarrassed silence. Without doubt well-thinking individuals and groups have made isolated attempts at dealing with the problem. However the sheer numbers of boys now involved and the complexities of the problem suggest to me that a full mustering of the might and resources of Government and also of the compassion and human resources of the church and other civic groups ought to be brought to bear on the situation. It is a situation which ought to be given the same urgency as if a Category 5 hurricane was expected to give the island a direct hit within 48 hours. With every passing day the population of street boys increases (or so it appears) which means that literally every day we are losing our potentially productive men to idleness. The persons involved in the control of the AIDS epidemic ought to be also concerned about the problem for I am told that sex is easily available on the streets. Unbridled teenage energy with easy availability of sex provides to my layman's mind a good combination for the spread of the disease. I call upon the Ambassador for Children to bring the full resources of the Government to bear on the problem. I also call upon each church denomination to urgently and prayerfully formulate and implement programmes to assist with the needs of the boys. To the National Initiative for Street Children, the YMCA and other groups which have existing programmes I say press on with renewed vigour and increased speed. I am, etc., S. RICHARDS
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| Place the insane in institutions
THE EDITOR, Madam: I AM amazed at the length to which the Jamaicans For Justice group will go in the name of justice, or is it for social or political mileage for themselves? While I commend them for assuming civic responsibilities, for their vigilance, for their persistence, I wonder why it did not become clear to Dr. Gomes, moreso as a medical personnel to work with the Ministry of Health to rid the streets of persons with severe psychiatric disorders? I note with interest that in recent times there has been a spate of women of intellectual status initiating new social groups which might be a good thing but please, please, ladies of academia, try to eliminate the causes instead of waiting for the effects to happen. While I am not condoning what was done to the street people and I hasten to say that I sympathise with them, I recall some strange and serious encounters with persons of unsound mind in the streets. Not so long ago, an employee of the Bauxite Company was travelling through New Kingston in a company vehicle, when an insane man hurled a large stone into the vehicle and smashed the woman's face. Consequently, the Bauxite Company had to stand the expense of corrective plastic surgery in Miami. My own experience is that some years ago, while driving along North Street, an insane man with two large stones in both his hands and with his leg astride in an effort to hold up his beltless pants, walked in the path of my car. I was so terrified for fear that he would throw the stones in my windshield. I quickly went on my brakes then swerved to the right to avoid him but he kept coming into the car and in order to save him I again swerved to the left but wherever I went he followed the car. Finally in trying to save both ourselves, I swerved back to the right and could not avoid hitting him or alternatively I would have hit the coming car. As I drove on and glanced into the rear view mirror, I saw my friend struggling to his feet and as I looked on the sidewalk to see whether anyone had seen, I heard a woman exclaimed "Lawd pupa jezus a wha dis" I regretted what had happened but no way would I have stopped in such a volatile area. I trembled for days knowing what could have happened in a worst-case scenario. My own brother-in-law wondered away from home in his pyjamas and was hit down on the Washington Boulevard and succumbed in the University Hospital. Persons with severe psychiatric disorders must be kept off the streets, not only for the good of the users of the road but also for their own good. Based on all of the above I say to Dr. Gomes et al, power to you in your struggle for justice but please use those energies to ensure protective homes for those insane people and please don't tell me that they are all over the world on the streets. Jamaica can be different. I am, etc., E. REITTIE
Give back to KC THE EDITOR, Madam: IN A day that is gone I once served as MC at a Kingston College Old Boys Association annual dinner, that festive occasion on which Old Boys like myself assemble in fellowship each year to pay tribute to our Alma Mater. When the time came to introduce the headboy, who was to speak after the headmaster, I resorted to a poem entitled "The best school of all", the layout of which I've forgotten but which spoke along these lines: For ashes must to ashes come and dust to dust return, but when the dust that's part of us to dust again be gone, yet here shall beat the heart of us, the school we handed on. Kingston College is to alumni the school that handed us on, and it is now our turn to see that it is well handed on by us. In a day that is gone resources were a little less than enough for running the school after all, education has always been a kind of Cinderella. In the days that are with us, available resources are woefully inadequate for maintaining what has been done, and even more so for the development that has to take place in this fast-changing world of ours. So some years ago the KC Old Boys Association started what was known as the Kingston College Development Trust Fund (KCDTF). The intention was, and is, to develop a substantial capital sum, the earnings of which would be applied to the strengthening of the school that has made us into Fortis people. In this year 2000 AD, the resolve is to make that sum reach the $20 million mark. A special appeal has been launched for rallying support for the fund from all living alumni of 2A North Street, Kingston, Jamaica. There is much ground to cover and much work to be done, but happily response is building up and there is hope and expectation that success can be achieved, given the potential and the response that we have a right to expect. Furthermore, groups of alumni are getting together in foreign parts New York, Toronto, Miami, Atlanta and elsewhere to support the KCDTF objective of that twenty million dollars before the year 2000 ends. I am sure that no KC Old Boy could ever want to be someone who never responded to the KCDTF appeal. And so this letter is intended to reach all KC Old Boys, in recognition of those who have already contributed and will not hesitate to contribute again, and to those who have not yet contributed but are poised to make their first offering a reminder to all of us that Fortis Cadere Cedere Non Potest. I am, etc., CHESTER BURGESS
Responses to letters THE EDITOR, Madam: SEVERAL TIMES, most recently on February 25, The Gleaner have reported that a Joint Select Committee of Parliament had expressed disappointment in the public's seeming lack of interest in the issue before the Committee, as evidenced by a lack of written submissions to the Committee. The problem may be that these Committees seldom acknowledge submissions, not even with a pre-printed postcard. Government by non-answer still prevails. I am, etc., D.W.B. WANFORD
An unfortunate omission THE EDITOR, Madam: I WAS overjoyed to see the cordial and enthusiastic
reception which ordinary Jamaicans in West Kingston granted His Royal Highness,
Nevertheless, a disturbing side of the visit is how the Trench Town Comprehensive High School was side-lined as part of his visit to schools. Madam, displayed prominently in the foyer of the school
is a plaque which reads "This school was given as a gift to the people
of Trench
Of course, this was when another Government was in power. I do feel, because of politics, the school, situated just
about 400 yards from where all the activities were being staged, the organisers
who
The irony of the situation is that there is a vibrant
steel band organised and nourished by the present principal, Mrs. Grace
Smith, which
It is my opinion that community discontent and violence
will continue to persist, as long as those in power maintain a political
division
I am, etc., BASIL THOMPSON
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