Parade Gardens Residents Take Part in Parenting Workshop

One hundred and fifty residents of Parade Gardens (Central Kingston), are participating in a three-day workshop on stress management and parenting.

The workshop began today (November 25) and will last until Thursday (November 27). The sessions will be conducted from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Parade Gardens Community Centre.

The activity is being held under the Community Renewal Programme (CRP) of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), in partnership with the Art of Living Foundation (AOLF).

Speaking at a JIS ‘Think Tank’ on November 25, Technical Specialist for Socio-economic Development with the CRP, Charmaine Brimm, says the community of Parade Gardens was chosen because of the “youthfulness” of the community and other socio-economic issues.

She pointed out that the community has a population of over 11,000 persons, consisting mainly of the youth.

“So, when we talk about parenting issues, we talk about youth themselves who have become parents, so you can understand the complexities of that,” Ms. Brimm said.

She explained that the workshop is in line with the social transformation goal of the CRP, but will form part of a holistic development plan for the community.

“The reality is you can’t have full-scale development by giving it a piecemeal approach, so it can’t be that we are just addressing parenting and then recognizing that these people don’t work, and they need to work, so the stressors will still be there,” Ms. Brimm said.

The scope of the activities will see the AOLF employing a pioneering, innovative and integrated approach to build the capacity of residents/parents and impart knowledge and training on parenting, stress management and happiness.

International Programme Director with the AOLF, Dushyant Savadia, explained that the workshop will fall within the priorities of the community.

He noted that the workshop will begin with a session dubbed: ‘Know your child’. “It’s a very specialized two-hour programme, where we engage parents to understand (issues) from the child’s perspective,” Mr. Savadia explained.

On day two the workshop will focus on health and happiness, designed for parents to manage conflicts with themselves, and raising their children.

“On the third day we are hoping to interact with all the youth and give them another seminar with the understanding on education, communication, parents and human values,” Mr. Savadia informed.

The Programme Director said that since he has been in Jamaica, he has trained almost 400 youth at the Haile Selassie High school, taught over 200 inmates at the Tower Street Adult Correctional facility as well as implement community projects within Waterhouse, in St. Andrew.

The AOLF is an international non-profit, non-religious educational and humanitarian organisation, which works in special consultative status with the United Nations and is affiliated with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNICEF.

The organisation now operates in 152 countries and has touched the lives of over 370 million people from all walks of life, background and culture.