SHEFFIELD, Westmoreland — Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewelyn has called on Rotarians to provide mentorship to the less fortunate in the society.

“So I make a cry here today to you, Rotarians, that in some of the relevant programmes that you have, you try to be either big sister or big brother to some of the less fortunate children in our midst. Because, I can tell you, I have seen it many times: you have diamonds in the rough. You only need to have the intervention of a caring person who will take the time to guide and mentor them,” Llewellyn argued.

The DPP was addressing the Rotary Club of Savanna-la-Mar 49th installation and awards banquet held recently at the Negril Hills Golf Club in Westmoreland.

During the function, businesswoman Carol James was installed as the 2018-2019 president by assistant governor Kevin Hammond. James took over from immediate past president Hyacinth Tyghter.

The DPP pointed out that Rotarians can identify individuals with promise and mentor them in the areas of how to speak, how to prepare for a job, turning away from crime, and family planning.

“Try; if you can, to even save one to prevent that one from getting into a mentality that they must get as many children as possible, even if they can’t afford it,” Llewellyn urged.

“You have some of these people who believe getting a child is like getting a kitten. So they have these children they can’t afford, or they have the children for the state to take care of.”

The DPP argued that the lack of proper parenting has resulted in a number of youth getting on the wrong side of the law.

“I am one of the people, based on what I have seen in the courts, who can tell you that a significant amount of the young people that you see coming before the courts being convicted of crime, when you do the checks into their background, they are in a situation where, one, there is no father in the home; two, they were sometimes born to young women who themselves know nothing about parenting,” Llewellyn said.