• Category

  • Content Type

Advertisement

Children Our Number One Priority – Green

By: , May 27, 2016

The Key Point:

State Minister for Education, Youth and Information, Hon. Floyd Green, says the Ministry remains committed to taking the necessary actions that will protect the nation’s children.
Children Our Number One Priority – Green
Photo: Michael Sloley
In this file photo, State Minister for Education, Youth and Information, Hon. Floyd Green (right), reflects on the life of Ananda Dean, who died tragically in 2008, with her mother, Nardia Campbell.

The Facts

  • He called on all Jamaicans to join with the Government in safeguarding the welfare of children.
  • Mr. Green said structure represents a “call to action...that we all have a duty to protect (our children).”

The Full Story

State Minister for Education, Youth and Information, Hon. Floyd Green, says the Ministry remains committed to taking the necessary actions that will protect the nation’s children.

“We are dedicated to doing the sort of work that ensures that there is no doubt in the minds of Jamaicans that children are our number one priority,” Mr. Green assured.

He called on all Jamaicans to join with the Government in safeguarding the welfare of children. “Every child is our collective responsibility, and that we all have a duty to protect them,” he said.

The State Minister was speaking at a special ceremony at the Crying Child Monument downtown Kingston on Wednesday (May 25), to unveil the names of an additional 214 children, who died under tragic and violent circumstances from May 2011 to April 2015.
The function was hosted by the Scotia Foundation, which is one of the sponsors of the monument erected by the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC) in 2008.
Mr. Green said structure represents a “call to action…that we all have a duty to protect (our children).”

“When we think about the fact that…214 children…have died under violent circumstances, we realise that there is a lot of work to be done. This is another moment in our history that we should take stock of and recommit that we will do all in our power to protect the children among us,” he added.

Executive Director of the Scotia Foundation, Joylene Griffiths Irving, said the addition of the 214 names has almost completed the engravings on the four sides of the monument.
She said there are more names to be added from May 2015 to May 2016.
“We hope that by doing this, it will keep in the minds of all Jamaicans that the work continues of caring and protecting our children,” she noted.

Wednesday was observed as the International Missing Children’s Day. It is commemorated by the Global Missing Children’s Network (GMCN), a group of 22 countries that share best practices and disseminate information and images of missing children to improve the effectiveness of investigations into their disappearances.

They include: Albania, Argentina, Australia, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Last Updated: May 27, 2016

Skip to content