EVEN in the gloom a rainbow will sometimes appear — a timely reminder that all is not lost. The story in yesterday’s Sunday Observer of young social worker Mr Damion Waite alerts us that while ‘things bad’ in our children’s homes and places of safety, love and care can make a difference.

We are told that while he spent most of his, childhood years at the Jamaica Christian Boys’ Home as a result of family trauma, Mr Waite has had a highly successful life so far, and is now a lecturer at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in the United States.

We are struck by Mr Waite’s explanation of how he ‘made it’ through the children’s home ‘system’ and of his gratitude to the staff of the institution led by director, Ms Fannie Knight.

Said he: “…What got me through the system was that the majority of the staff were dedicated to children. You cannot have a children’s home where the staff are not interested in the welfare of the children. The fact that we had a supportive staff sort of got me through. Also for me, naturally I didn’t know what else to do, no one told me I had another path. So you went to school and did your studies. I am a product of my environment.

In other words, even with the chronic resource constraints that would have affected the Jamaica Christian Boys’ Home, people at the local level who took seriously their job of caring for children rather than just ‘administering’, made the difference.

All those professionals working at institutions dedicated to children should seek to emulate Ms Knight and her staff.

More than that, in the wider society, adults should recognise that ultimately, their greatest responsibility is to care and guide the young. So that, even at the most basic level, we have a responsibility to help that child next door and on the street corner, who is missing school because he or she has no lunch money, or is without shoes/clothes.

It may seem idealistic, but this newspaper strongly believes that if all of us who are able to help children, do so, the terrible blight of crime, for example, will in a few years be much reduced.

That’s the reason this newspaper has consistently advocated the rallying of community groups including the church and our political parties as social activists.

In that respect, we hail the work of those such as “Men with a Message” consisting of former gangsters and ex-cons who are now striving to show our children a better way, and churches such as the Central Tabernacle Deliverance Centre in Savanna-La-Mar for their proactive approach to education.

All of the above is not to let the Government off the hook. For, as we have previously pointed out in this space, Government for all its talk, has badly failed our children. When all is said and done though, it should be the task of each of us to ensure that in the words of Mr Waite, there is “a plan for each child”.

It, indeed, takes a village to raise a child.