I spotted then Bishop Kenneth Richards sitting quietly at the rehearsal for the National Heroes’ Day awards event last October. When I said I did not know that he was receiving an award, he answered proudly that it was not he, but his mother Ms Holdroyd McDonald, who would be receiving a Badge of Honour for Meritorious Service in the field of nursing.

Nurse McDonald has set a great example for her six high-achieving children. She has been with the St John’s Ambulance Brigade for over 30 years, and at age 79, still attends the senior citizens’ meeting at the Spanish Town Cathedral every Tuesday to teach its members crochet.

“Crochet is my passion,” she says. “It keeps the members occupied.”

Of her son who will be installed as the seventh Archbishop of Kingston on July 6, she says he has always been the kind of person “who doesn’t put anyone down”. “He makes people feel lifted up,” she says, “especially the youth.” She chuckled when I mentioned a newspaper interview where she showed her displeasure to the young Ken when he expressed a desire to become a sideman on a truck.

“I am always praying for my children,” she told me. “I expect them to give their 100 per cent.”

As we contemplate the many gangs wreaking havoc on our country, we know that if more children had a mother like Nurse McDonald, they would not become such easy prey for gangs.

Shared responsibility

In a conversation with senior police officers and concerned citizens last week, we noted that the largest youth club in Jamaica is the Police Youth Club, as our many good officers volunteer their time to help guide our children. We cannot continue to blame the police for crime: families, Government, community, church and school share the responsibility to restore peace and justice in our country.

We are still trying to come to terms with the brutal slaying of missionaries Randy Hentzel and Harold Nichols. We heard the criticisms about the police commissioner’s press briefing on their investigations, but we should realise that such incidents which became headlines in the US are all the more tragic because these two good men had been reaching out to the poor of our country.

The country felt a similar sense of revulsion when we learned of the cold-blooded slaying of a stalwart policewoman, Corporal Judith Williams. We could not hold back the tears as her daughter spoke of that cruel morning, the same morning that she had to sit an examination. She said she knew that her mother would want her to be strong, and so she did the examination and scored 98 per cent! How hard it must have been for those children to face Mother’s Day yesterday without such a mother.

These devastating reports should motivate those of us who have done well in this country to resolve to do more for the healing of our country.

There is a rumour that the missionaries’ deaths may have resulted from being innocently caught up in a land dispute relating to a house they were building for a needy person. Let us promote mediation training, and let us look to the Government to sharpen the mission of the Social Development Commission to restore the hope of our people.

At a recent meeting of the St Andrew Justices of the Peace, (SAJP) Superintendent Norris Rhoomes of the Constant Spring Police said such training had started at his station with the assistance of the US Government and invited us to participate.

At the Stella Maris Foundation, many a dispute has been settled because of such services, and we have seen Grant’s Pen evolve into a more peaceful community over recent years.

Members of the business community will also have to join together to resist extortionists and instead fund opportunities to train and uplift our unattached youth. Many years ago when the old Things Jamaican factory was being converted into the Horizon Park Remand Centre, the youth of S-Corner demanded of me, “Miss, why the Government building more prison and not more factory to give us work?”

Last year, a group of young men on Orange Street were hauled in for making knock-offs of Clarks shoes. Luckily, the police saw the talent in these young men and referred them to the Citizens Security and Justice Programme of the Ministry of Justice.

Now, through the mentorship of Professor K’adamawe K’nife at Mona School of Business and the Jamaica Business Development Company (JBDC), they are manufacturing their shoes at JBDC facilities on Marcus Garvey Drive, and the equipment funded by Digicel Foundation will be theirs once they are fully trained and their business legally established.

Jamaica has many well-meaning folks, agencies and organisations. Our challenge now is to streamline and focus our programmes so they can have the widest possible reach. Some of us are so passionate about Jamaica that we are overworked, while others have such a sense of entitlement that they will not lift a finger to volunteer for the empowerment of others.

Guidance from President Obama

As US President Barack Obama challenged the graduates at Howard University on Saturday, we should draw inspiration from his words.

“We cannot sleepwalk through life. We cannot be ignorant of history,” he said. “We can’t meet the world with a sense of entitlement. We can’t walk by a homeless man without asking why a society as wealthy as ours allows that state of affairs to occur.”

The president observed, “We can’t just lock up a low-level dealer without asking why this boy, barely out of childhood, felt he had no other options. We have cousins and uncles and brothers and sisters who we remember were just as smart and just as talented as we were, but somehow got ground down by structures that are unfair and unjust.”

The president declared that the graduates should realise that they had been lucky: “Yes, you’ve worked hard, but you’ve also been lucky. That’s a pet peeve of mine: People who have been successful and don’t realise they’ve been lucky. That God may have blessed them; it wasn’t nothing you did. So don’t have an attitude. But we must expand our moral imaginations to understand and empathise with all people who are struggling, not just black folks who are struggling.”

The hundreds who turned out for the Food For the Poor 5K last Saturday to support housing for our poor, the dedication of the team led by Chairman Andrew Mahfood, the many others like Supt Rhoomes and Professor K’nife, are living the president’s instructions: “You have to go through life with more than just passion for change; you need a strategy. I’ll repeat that. I want you to have passion, but you have to have a strategy. Not just awareness, but action. Not just hashtags, but votes. You see, change requires more than righteous anger. It requires a programme, and it requires organising.”

lowriechin@aim.com

www.lowrie-chin.blogspot.com