Young men from the Rose Town community who participated in the adolescent parenting training programme, which was held over three months in the community. Eighty young men graduated from the programme on Wednesday in a ceremony held at the Holiness Christian Church in Rose Town, lower St. Andrew. - Contributed

Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter

Eighty inner-city young men from the Rose Town community in St. Andrew have graduated from a three-month male adolescent parenting training programme.

The 80 young men between ages 14 and 25 years were trained in the areas of parenting, substance abuse, conflict management and reproductive health.

They were presented with their certificates on Wednesday during a graduation ceremony held at the Holiness Christian Church in Rose Town.

Melbourne Absalom of Information Affairs and Crisis Taskforce (I-ACT) told The Gleaner that the programme was conceived by his organisation to address the need for such training in the community.

"The programme has been a success. It is the first there has been a programme like this in an inner-city community," he said. "These are programmes that can make changes in our young men."

Karen Turner, mission director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) who sponsored the programme, said the training was aimed at equipping adolescent males with good parenting skills.

She said parenting issues are a recurrent concern. She expressed the hope that the training programme would inspire the young men to be good fathers.

"We are hoping that training for these young men will make a difference to this community," she added.

Learned a lot

Meanwhile, Lorenzo Jarrett, a participant on the programme, said he learned a lot from the programme.

"It was quite informative and interesting," said the 24-year-old. "We as youths love sexual activities but we learned how to protect ourselves (in the sessions). Many of us don't know how to do that so father or no father, we still have to get informed on those topics."

The programme was the collaborative effort of five community-based organisations.

These organisations were: the Rose Town Benevolent Society, Information Affairs and Crisis Taskforce, the Rose Town Youth Network, Hope for Children Development Company Limited and Church and Urban Renewal Enterprise.