Some time ago I was invited to address a group of male students at a primary school in St James. It was Boys’ Day, so only the male students attended school and were being exposed to a variety of activities designed to make them responsible men of the future. My involvement was to give a motivational talk to grade six students with ages ranging between 10 to 12.

During my presentation, I asked each boy to get up and say what he wanted to be when he grew up. At first, I got the usual responses: “doctor”, “lawyer”, “teacher”, “businessman”, etc. Then there was this spindly tyke who raised his hand defiantly and declared proudly, “Sir, I want to be a gunman!” Needless to say, there was a deathly silence with the entire class, as well as me, staring at him in disbelief. Surely, he was just joking or trying to be mischievous, I thought. But then, another student rose and said, “Sir, is true. Him father is a gunman.”

One of the tragedies of today’s Jamaica is that so many youngsters are not being allowed to enjoy their childhood. They are being forced into adulthood mentally, physically, and even sexually. It is no secret that the absence of fathers in many of our homes has led to much deviance, truancy, and juvenile delinquency. As a result, girls and boys have turned to crime in its many forms in order to eke out an existence or to be accepted and revered in an environment where badness appears to pay good dividends. Many children are forced to watch their parents having sex and, at times, ruthless, uncaring stepfathers and boyfriends take advantage of hapless little girls while their mothers turn a blind eye or even encourage these dastardly acts of copulation because of their immediate economic wants and needs.

Too many of our boys grow up without any fatherly love in their miserable lives. In a society that is extremely homophobic our men are afraid to be their son’s best friends. To hug them and tell them that they love them will make them look “funny”. As a result, our boys grow up without any fatherly love and this is why so many of them are so heartless and will “make a duppy” (kill someone) without batting an eyelid or having any sense of remorse.

Indeed, many of them do not expect to live past 25 years old so they live fast and die young. In fact, the police will tell you that some of the most evil, wicked, coldblooded killers in the Jamaican society are male youngsters. Immediate gratification is the order of the day. In essence, for many of our youngsters, it is death at an early age. And what is most frightening is that I am not just referring here to physical death, but death of the soul and the spirit.

It is against this background that I am recommending that 2021 be declared by us all as The Year for Mentorship.

There is the more formal type of mentorship that is usually done within the workplace or academic setting, but there is need, in the Jamaican context, for the type of mentorship that is community and family related, which is designed specifically to rescue marginalised, displaced, and directionless youth in depressed communities or dysfunctional homes.

I always find it so ironic when students get all dressed up for graduation, especially at the secondary/high school level. A philosopher once referred to a dead atheist as he laid in his coffin as someone who was all dressed up with no place to go. As morbid as it may sound, this may well be an apt description for many of these young people. Too few of them will obtain gainful employment while others will have tremendous difficulty finding the necessary funds to go on to further studies or training. One such graduate told me that he had already decided to either take up the gun or get into the sweepstakes business (lotto scamming). He has both ordinary and advanced level subjects and hopes to be a lawyer one day, but will he make it?

Yes, there are numerous such cases out there, and I am appealing to those people who are in a position to mentor an unfortunate youngster to do so. If each of us can save even one such young Jamaican from descending into the abyss we will have made a difference.

The sad truth is that our generation has failed this upcoming generation in more ways than one. Yet we condemn them as being a generation of vipers. There have been too many studies, task forces, research papers, public education programmes, and other such exercises in futility done in the name of “social intervention” which in many instances only so-called consultants and party hacks benefit from while “Jah kingdom goes to waste”.

And it is not only our politicians that are to be blamed for the many ills that plague this country’s youth. What of our dancehall artistes whose lifestyle, lyrics, and utterances have a lasting effect on our young minds?

I once asked a young man during a job interview if he read the newspapers, listened to the news on radio, or watched it on television and his crisp response was, “No, Sah, mi lissen to Bounty Killa and Beenie Man!” When are we going to rope in our performing artistes and impress on them the vitally important role they can play in influencing especially our male youngsters to be on the right path to success as well as being a useful and happy citizen?

It cannot be business as usual if we seriously want to save this country from becoming a banana republic in which the rule of law becomes a sick joke and crime and violence take precedence. Regrettably, we have been spending too much time on seeming trivialities and sideshows while the society is deteriorating into anarchy. In other words, we continue to fiddle while Rome burns.

With the advent of the novel coronavirus pandemic and the continuing high levels of criminality and social disorder in which so many of young people are the main perpetrators, a sustained national mentorship programme is long overdue. Government in partnership with the private sector, the Church, academia, and other relevant bodies must come together and make this a priority. To ignore this charge is not a worthwhile option.

Lloyd B Smith has been involved full-time in Jamaican media for the past 44 years. He has also served as a Member of Parliament and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives. He hails from western Jamaica, where he is popularly known as the Governor. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or lbsmith4@gmail.com.