WITH frequent violent confrontations, sparked oftentimes by gang disputes, Glendevon in St James has received more than its share of negative publicity over the last few years.

Still, members of the Blessed Sacrament Cathedral in the parish have insisted on making weekly visits to the community, in an effort to help improve the lives of residents there.

For the past two years, the church has gone into the community each Monday evening to hold classes, mediate and offer encouragement.

Rector Father Carl Clarke said that although they were warned not to stay in the community after 6:00 pm, the church has been fuelled by the need to evangelise, which has seen members staying past the recommended time in the area.

"We recognised that the church needed to be touching what is going on outside," said Clarke. "We also needed to be bringing the gospel. And the way we brought the gospel to them was different from the way the traditional churches would have -- we never went out there preaching to them."

Instead, the church explored with residents various avenues to improve their lives. So realising the need for a community centre in the area, for example, the church, with the assistance of Food for the Poor, recently started the construction of one, which will also serve as a chapel and homework centre. The construction, now 80 per cent complete, has also offered employment to about 12 residents who are paid for their services.

And the church's approach is reaping dividends, Clarke said.

"They respect us so much in the community that we had blocks and sand and gravel sitting on the property for more than two to three weeks and not one block went missing," he boasted.

However, Clarke said that there is yet more work to be done in the area in order to further improve the lives of the residents. And while change will take time, Clarke said, the church is committed.

Meanwhile, existing initiatives remain. Education is chief among them for the church, which is located on premises shared with Mount Alvernia High and Mount Alvernia Preparatory schools, as well as Chetwood Memorial Primary.

Blessed Sacrament Cathedral helps to foot the cost of education for several children annually, through the provision of lunch money, bus fare and tuition.

"We easily touch each year, in terms of helping children to go to school, more than 150 kids from the primary to the university level," Clarke said.

"We are not denominational, in that a requirement for being assisted is not that you have to be a Catholic," he added.

The church also serves as a distribution point for Food for the Poor, helping with the dissemination of farming, medical and school supplies to a number of organisations and institutions in western Jamaica.

"A large cross-section of schools have come for the rice and the peas and the oil and the corn, when it is available, and this certainly impacts on the nutrition of the students in the West," Clarke noted.

"You would see schools from Trelawny, schools from St James, schools from Westmoreland and from Hanover coming on the property with their vehicles to collect the benches, to collect the books, to collect whatever they need," he added.

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