Parents Urged to Take Advantage of ‘Name the Child’ Project

The Registrar General’s Department (RGD) is urging parents to take advantage of the ‘Name the Child’ project’, which is aimed at reducing the number of children, whose names do not appear on the RGD’s birth records.
Under the initiative, which began in the corporate area on Monday (Sept. 11), mobile teams from the RGD have been facilitating the official naming of some 6,761 children who were born in Kingston and St Andrew between January 1, 2003 and August 31, 2004.
Lamenting the small turnout at the Pentecostal Tabernacle, 72 Wildman Street on the first day, Dr. Damian Ffriend, Civil Registration and Marketing Manager of the RGD told JIS News, “we saw a few hundred persons but we were unable to complete the process for some of the persons, who showed up, because their children where not among the 18,000 born within the specific period. Also, others had to leave to get the Status Form completed especially in cases where the particulars of the father were to be added”.
“We are asking the parents of these children to meet our teams at the advertised locations in the parish in which the child was born so that we will be able to help them in the process of registering a name for their child and if there are no father’s particulars on the record, to assist them in making sure that this is added,” he urged.
“Parents need to make use of this opportunity. After we have left the parish in which the child was born, they will have to use the normal system,” he pointed out, adding that, “if a child’s name is not officially registered with the RGD, that child will not be able to get a birth certificate”.
Parents are being asked to take along a valid photo identification (ID) in the form of a passport, voter’s ID or driver’s licence, the child’s immunization card along with the child’s christening or baptismal record (if applicable) and a completed Certificate of Naming in order to complete the registration process.
Additionally, parents should ensure that they provide the correct spelling of names in order to ensure smooth registration.
In cases where the particulars of the father need to be added, parents should also take along a completed Status form, which should be signed by the child’s father as well as a Justice of the Peace.
On September 13 and 14, the RGD will be at the Merl Grove High School, 77 Constant Spring Road and at Fellowship Tabernacle Church, 58 Half-Way-Tree Road and at the New Life Assembly of God, 148 Constant Spring Road and the Tarrant Baptist Church, 51 Molynes Road on the 15th, 18th and 19th. Customer Service Representatives will be in place from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. at all locations.
Parents are being asked to make a contribution of only $500 to cover the process of the application and a copy of the birth certificates. Normally, the fee for adding the Late Entry of Name is $2,000 and an additional $600 is charged for adding the father’s particulars.
The waiving of the fees by the RGD was announced by the Minister of Health, Horace Dalley at the opening of the RGD’s Portmore Pines Regional Office recently. According to the Minister, the government would assist to underwrite the cost of having the names of the 18,000 children entered on their records at a value of more than $24 million.
The ‘Name the Child’ project, will cover 34 locations across the island over a five-week period. The RGD’s mobile team will next travel to the parish of St. Ann, where some 2,124 children in that parish are not on the official birth records.