Early Initiation of Ananda Alert Key to Recovery of Missing Children

Ananda Alert is being hailed as an important tool in the recovery of missing children in Jamaica.

Minister of State in the Ministry of Education and Youth, Hon. Marsha Smith, said the early initiation of the system is key in ensuring the safe return of children to their loved ones.

“The Ananda Alert system, to a great extent, is about the regular person being prepared and being armed with the knowledge as to how to initiate the alert,” she said.

“When it comes to missing children – our children who are vulnerable – early initiation is the most effective tool that we have to fight against child endangerment,” she added.

The Education State Minister was addressing the Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA) Ananda Alert Youth Forum held recently in Montego Bay, St. James.

Ananda Alert is a nationwide system, designed to ensure speedy and safe recovery of a child in the unfortunate event that he/she is missing or abducted.

The system, which came into effect in 2009, is named after Ananda Dean, who was abducted and murdered in 2008.

It involves mobilising stakeholders to get the message of a missing child into the public domain the moment the matter is reported to the police.

No longer do persons have to wait 24 hours before reporting a missing child.

The forum, which targeted teenagers ages 13 to 16 years, facilitated open discussion on the issue of missing children in Jamaica, and provided appropriate recommendations to address the problem.

Miss Smith said the forum is a welcome event on the calendar of the CPFSA, noting that missing children are of grave concern to the Government of Jamaica and the society as a whole.

“When a child goes missing, there is a dread, a drop in the bottom of the belly of the parents and the loved ones and it also affects you as young persons,” she noted.

“Let me express my appreciation to the CPFSA for having the foresight and the diligence to host a youth-centred forum such as this, where the young people in the west could increase and deepen their understanding and awareness of all the varied issues related to missing children. Some of these missing children may be persons that you know,” she said.

For her part, Chief Executive Officer for the CPFSA, Laurette Adams-Thomas, said the forum was held to generate new ideas and strategies to assist in preventing children from going missing and to quickly find those who do.

Some 12 schools across western Jamaica participated in the forum.