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Highly commendable, Mr Errol Rattray
Sunday, June 21, 2009
A cursory glance at what is happening in contemporary Jamaica is enough to defy any attempt to deny that a good Jamaican man is becoming somewhat of an endangered species.
From the ongoing sagas involving corruption, recklessness, violence and almost every other negative social issue to the ultimately tragic suicidal endings and scandalous headlines, the dilemma is obvious.
And even as the world celebrates fathers and their achievements today, it is impossible to ignore that there is much to be concerned about.
Our boys are bored, tending - the social scientists tell us - to literally drop out of touch with reality and through the cracks of a limping system by age 11. By age 15 when some of them 'come to themselves' so to speak, it's just too late for most of them to catch up with any productive worthwhile endeavour.
Damaged and disadvantaged, they move on to father (biologically speaking) droves of children - perpetrating the unfortunate cycle of social malaise for which we all have to pay in the end.
Quick fixes, there are none.
What is needed is a systematic effort - an example of which is to be found in Evangelist Errol Rattray's first boys' conference in western Jamaica - to change the mentalities that have manifested themselves in the current mess we are in.
The objectives of Mr Rattray's conference, which started on Friday at the St John's Methodist Church Hall in Montego Bay, were to pull together a team of experienced professionals to provide encouragement and guidance to a better paradigm for boys in western Jamaica.
Consequently, Friday saw several presenters, including Mr Paul Stanton, deputy superintendent of the St James police; Dr Delroy Fray, consultant surgeon at the Cornwall Regional Hospital; the Reverend Paul Blake of Sold Out Ministries International; Mr Glendon Powell Jnr, lecturer at the Montego Bay Community College; the Reverend Adinhair Jones, executive director of the National Youth Service; and the Reverend Doctor Lloyd Burnett, counselling over 100 boys from 13 schools across western Jamaica.
Yesterday, the conference continued with football competitions at various playing fields in the second city and a 1,000-man march which culminated in a massive men's rally in Sam Sharpe Square.
There various speakers again endeavoured to reinforce positive values and attitudes regarding Jamaican manhood.
Readers will recall that Mr Rattray's efforts to clean up Jamaica - in the social, moral and physical sense - are not new.
In February of 2007, he spearheaded a clean-up campaign of the city of Kingston and other parts of the island as part of a larger effort to intensify the effectiveness of his gospel ministry.
At the time, he reaped stinging criticism from educator Ms Hyancinth Bennett, who lamented the belatedness, among other characteristics, of the effort.
Part of Ms Bennett's grouse, as we understand it, was that the effort could hardly effect the magnitude of change required to set Jamaica on the right track.
True, but the fact is that change is a process that must begin somewhere.
And we would like to think that Mr Rattray's efforts, which are being put forward with commendable intentions, represent as good a place as any to start.
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