WEST Kingston is deemed by many to be among the worst places to live and/or work, especially given the trouble brewing there in recent weeks. Anglican Priest Father Abner Powell thinks otherwise.

He believes there is yet hope for communities in that area. So for the past 30 years, he has worked with members of the All Saints Church on West Street, which he leads, to be a voice of reason for the poor and oftentimes despairing residents of communities surrounding the church.

Over the years, the church has developed a range of social projects, in an effort to show people a better alternative to the pervasive criminal culture that exists in the communities. The social programmes started from as early as 1978 when they were asked to help feed the 60,000 residents of West Kingston, as part of a truce organised by the dons in the community in tandem with churches and politicians.

“They wanted us to give the people food, and send the kids to school and then they would have peace. That peace lasted for just a little while, then came the terrible ’80s, when things stirred up,” he said.

That was only one of many peace arrangements between various communities in West Kingston that have been broken over the years. But while the relationship among the communities have been tumultous over time, this has not been the case between them and the All Saints Church — even though they continued to be affected by crime.

“It was rough. Many Sunday mornings I had to be on the streets before we could start service because, of course, the drain covers would be removed overnight for safety,” recounted the priest. “The guys would tell me where to find them in the mornings. So every Sunday morning, I’d have to come and put them in, then I would stand out there and make sure that the people could move forward.”

Despite the high levels of violence at times, the priest maintained that, “If everything is crashing, then the church ought to be a sign of stability.”

Father Powell, who is also the chaplain for Kingston College, has placed a lot of focus on education as a way to create stability. In addition to establishing and maintaining the church’s Infant School, the priest started evening classes for the more adult residents, just two years ago. These residents are given the opportunity to take CXC mathematics and English classes free of cost.

“This is for people who have dropped out of school, you know, people who have the children and for whatever reason they were kicked out of school and never got a chance (to get back in),” he said. “Sometimes, you have a mother and her son in the same class.”

The church has also partnered with the Community Security Initiative (CSI), an arm of the Ministry of Justice and Social Security, to equip residents with skills that will allow them to secure a job.

“We have had quite a bit of training in housekeeping, catering, food handling and that type of thing, to give people skills because that’s part of the cry,” he said.

Other challenges the residents grapple with include illiteracy, unemployment, bad roads, peer pressure, poor housing, poor sanitation facilities, poor school attendance, poor street lights and poor community participation. The church hopes that its recently established computer centre will address, at least, the problem of illiteracy.

“You can’t sort of help them with jobs, or for the future and things like that, unless they are IT-literate,” noted Father Powell. “We have a big problem with literacy, especially with the youngsters, and so a part of the initial thing was to get a programme just to teach them to read from the computer.”

The new computer centre is the result of the partnership between the church and the CSI and is expected to go a long way in empowering the youths to turn away from crime. However, that in itself appears a tall order since just minutes after the priest outlined his plans to uplift the residents to the Sunday Observer, sporadic gunshots were heard from a nearby communuity.

Still, the priest — whose life was threatened in the ’80s after he appeared on television condemning the terrorising of residents of Jones Town by members of another community — said he has become widely respected in the area in which he works.

Meanwhile, apart from programmes geared toward literacy, the church provides clothing, fills prescriptions and feeds the more poverty-stricken in the community.

“For the past 25 years, we have been feeding 70 to 100 people on a Sunday. They come off the streets and part of the whole idea was that Sunday is very special for Jamaicans and many of them don’t have any cooking facility, so we try to provide a decent rice and peas meal and the usual Sunday fare for them,” Father Powell said.

The church also helps to bury residents who were neglected by family members prior to their deaths, and decided seven years ago to start a mentorship and parenting programme for community members, similar to what is practised in Anglican dioceses around the world.

“We go into schools and we invite people in the community to have seminars and things like that, to teach them about parenting, because that is one of the weak areas within our community,” he said.