Jamaicans Should Adopt Community Approach in Raising Children

Minister of the Faith Cathedral Deliverance Centre, Denise Samuels has called on Jamaicans to adopt the community approach in raising and caring for the nation’s children.

“The increasing atrocities against our children have certainly kept me praying. We cannot deny that what is consistently needed are divine interventions and that is why as a nation we have to get back to observing the community approach in raising and caring for our children,” Minister Samuels said.

She was speaking at the National Workers’ Week and Labour Day Thanksgiving Church Service held today (May 17) at the Greater Grace Temple, 65A Deanery Road in Kingston.

The service, organised by the Committee for the Promotion of National Religious Services, was held under the theme, “Labour of Love: Nurturing Our Children.

Present at the service, were Prime Minister the Most Hon. Portia Simpson Miller, Minister of Youth and Culture, Hon. Lisa Hanna, Minister of State in the Ministry of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining, Hon. Julian Robinson, members of the Diplomatic Corps and other dignitaries.

Mrs. Samuels also commended the government for focusing on safeguarding the welfare of the nation’s children for this year’s National Labour Day activities.

Expounding on the theme for Workers’ Week and Labour Day, she said that it was “relevant and timely.”

“It highlights the fact that love is not a noun, it is a verb and nurturing our children is not a onetime event, but it is a consistent effort by all. Children are extremely important to God and they form an integral part of our family system and development as a nation,” she said.

She further related a story about a man who had seen a drowning man and immediately threw him a rope, but without holding on to the other end.

“So often we throw our children ropes by telling them that they should be educated, but we don’t hold on to the other end by ensuring that they go to school on a regular basis and we don’t provide them with the necessities that will facilitate proper learning,” she added.

“We throw our children’s rope by telling them that they should be disciplined but we don’t hold on to the other end by setting the example in our actions in our words, instead our children hear and see adults being disrespectful and abusing each other,” she continued.

In making her plea for better parenting, the Minister urged Jamaicans to set examples of love and being neighbourly.

“When we throw ropes to our children what we are in essence doing is asking them to take a leap of faith by reaching out and holding on to their end and as would any drowning person do,” she added.

Minister Samuels, who was representing the Jamaica Association of Full Gospel Churches, urged Jamaicans to find creative ways “to engage our children and being proactive in nurturing our children.”

She noted that children are the next generation of workers, and called on citizens to become ‘fruitful’ by finding creative ways to engage the nation’s children.

“Being fruitful is therefore a leap of faith by ensuring that the seeds that we sow produce a youthful harvest and one way to ensure a fruitful harvest is to love every child, love our neighbours as ourselves regardless of your social standing,” she added.