RISE Life Management Services is reporting excellent results from its collaboration with the Betting Gaming and Lotteries Commission (BGLC) to help promote responsible gaming and prevent gambling addictions, as well as underage gaming.

RISE Life Executive Director Sonita Abrahams said that the programme, underwritten by the BGLC, was aimed at sensitising 9,600 school-based youth on the consequences of underage gambling for the project year September 2017 to August 2018, but has exceeded that target.

“RISE is pleased to announce that we have far exceeded that total and have to date engaged with 13,486 students,” she said. The executive director attributed the clear success to the outstanding work of the team members and the proactive approach of the BGLC to treating with gambling related issues in Jamaica.

The programme, she added, was borne out of the recognition that it was critical to provide support for Jamaicans seeking to be more responsible gamers and to provide help for those struggling with addiction. “Importantly, we must provide the best available information to the youth so as to give them the skills to resist the temptation of engaging in underage gambling.”

The gambling prevention initiative is targeted at primary school-aged youth in general and specifically Grades 5 and 6. Abrahams noted, however, that the organisation has engaged with several high schools which have requested the presentation and viewed it as timely and needed.

She added that RISE life has made a significant effort to reach schools outside of the Corporate Area, with sessions being initiated in some St Catherine-based schools as well as in St Elizabeth. The aim in the new project year is to spread these sessions across the island.

RISE Life Management has more than 30 years of experience in meeting the needs of the young at-risk population in Jamaica, particularly those living in inner-city communities.

Services offered by RISE include the prevention and treatment of addictive disorders; community-based health and education interventions; drug and HIV/AIDS prevention programmes for at-risk youth and family members; remedial educational programmes; life skills training, parenting programmes, social and health-related services and HEART/NTA accredited vocational skills training.

These interventions take place in some of Kingston’s most volatile inner-city communities.