Dr Carolyn Gomes misrepresenting me, says Osborne
Kay Osborne who resigned yesterday as executive director of JFJ, issued the following edited statement in which she contradics claims made by her predecessor Dr Carolyn Gomes, in a Sunday Observer article titled “JFJ, Gomes trade charges in sex-ed row”:
Dr Gomes’ statements exclude the material fact that the children’s homes programme was represented to me as a human rights advocacy programme. Therefore, as Dr Gomes well knows, when the JFJ programme implementer asked my assistance in getting her children’s homes programme completed on time to allow her to depart Jamaica for Montreal on a sponsored educational training opportunity, I promptly intervened on her behalf.
I contacted the children’s home and explained to the person in charge that the JFJ programme implementer would greatly benefit from receiving the educational opportunity overseas and that the children’s homes schedule was in conflict with her achieving this goal. The administrator promptly agreed to the schedule change. She expressed the view that the overseas educational opportunity was a very good thing she didn’t want to deny the implementer. At no time during my intervention was there discussion of the programme’s content or modules or anything else besides efforts to help the implementer complete her assignment so she could depart for Montreal on time..
I mentioned the programme during my Live @ 7 (television) interview and in my press release to Hon Lisa Hanna, minister of youth and culture as being among JFJ’s ongoing projects. Like Jamaicans everywhere, my expectation was that the children’s home programme was similar to one of the different types of human rights advocacy programmes JFJ is well known for engaging in over many years..
For Dr Gomes to misrepresent my intervention to help a staff member complete her assignment to meet the dealine of her expense paid overseas educational opportunity, and my mention of the programme in an interview and press release as evidence that I knew about the HIV/AIDS intervention in children’s homes says volumes about…
