KINGSTON, Jamaica — Children advocacy organisation Hear the Children’s Cry is calling on private sector organisations to “invest more in Jamaica’s children”.

On the first day of Child’s Month, the organisation says while it is commending those efforts already being carried out by members of the private sector, including the funding of Hear the Children’s Cry’s Missing Children’s Support Programme by Jamaica Yellow Pages, those efforts are too few.

“These existing programmes, while critically important and very praiseworthy, are still too few and far between – we are losing the most important battle facing Jamaica, the protection and welfare of our vulnerable children,” the organisation’s founder Betty Ann Blaine said in a release.

“We would like to challenge the Private Sector to play a much greater role. We are inspired by the concept and work of the Economic Programme Oversight Committee (EPOC), and the role played by the Private Sector in this. We urge the private sector to take the lead in forming and operating a vital companion body to EPOC – namely, a Child Protection Oversight Committee (CPOC).”

Blaine said that such a body could play an extremely positive role in national development, by focusing on issues of family life like absentee fathers, teenage pregnancy and poor parenting.

She argued that EPOC members would be in an ideal position to seek international funding support for child protection/child welfare programmes, as they negotiate such funding for economic programme objectives.

“If we can fix family life, child welfare and youth employment issues, we would be well on the way to creating the positive future we talk about in our Vision 2030 dream of ‘Jamaica, the place of choice to live, work, raise families and do business’,” Blaine said.