The Editor, Sir:

How wonderfully refreshing it was to read the report entitled 'Economic growth for Arnett and Trench Town' by Ross Sheil; a ray of hope if you may for inner-city communities generally defined by violence and despair. Dr. Henley Morgan must be commended for his efforts to reverse the trend of economic flight from these impoverished communities.

It doesn't require any studies to see that a major cause of the inner city's problem is primarily the lack of opportunities. By identifying the issues and taking action, Dr. Henley and his Agency for Inner-City Renewal (AIR) is certainly 'walking the talk'. There has been a lot of talk but very little action to address the obvious issues facing the inner city.

Indeed, we all are deeply troubled by the high crime rate, but we also need to be concerned about the circumstances which contribute to this problem.

Poverty and lack of opportunity have always been a catalyst for criminal activities. We only need to look at the urban centres in the U.S. It doesn't matter how wealthy a country is, if the opportunities for employment and training are lacking, inevitably, you will have social decay.

Jamaica needs more Dr. Henleys and more training programmes like that offered to the shop owners by UTech, if we are going to successfully deal with the many social ills affecting the country. We support law enforcement and indeed we should. But killing and incarcerating these young men only deals with the symptoms. Unfortunately, there are lots of unemployed and unskilled youth waiting to replace those we take out.

Government and the private sector need to take a serious look at the initiatives of AIR with intentions to creating similar models.

I am, etc.,

JOHN WASHINGTON

jwash_777@yahoo.ca

1600 Keele Street

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Via Go-Jamaica