“Kam, kam, kam!” is how 13-year-old Deno Griffiths imitates the piercing sounds of gunshots echoing throughout his Arnett Gardens community in St Andrew anytime of the day.

The gun violence, he said, often leave him and his peers too afraid to leave their houses for school.

Deno was among 11 youngsters who shared that they were not pleased with Jamaica’s crime situation during a Jamaica Observer/Rise Life Management youth forum held in a section of the community called Mexico on May 11.

The forum was staged in collaboration with the Trench Town Development Committee.

“Crime is a bad thing in Jamaica; you will even be getting up to go to school and when you look, man run pass you with gun, you have to run back inside and you’ll hear, ‘kam, kam, kam, kam!’ and when you look, you see seh you get shot inna your foot,” said Deno, who attends Kingston High School.

His schoolmate, Kibee Smith, agreed, noting that at times he has to scurry for cover under his bed.

He also shared that he is unable to concentrate on his studies at home when there is a flare-up of violence in the community.

“You don’t know the minute or the hour crime is going to start. You get up in the morning to go school and shot just start fire and you have to run back in your house. That makes children scared,” the 13-year-old said.

“A lot of times when I’m studying too, it affects me. Sometimes dem fire shot and it affects my house, hit my window, wall and tree. So when it start, I have to go low. It’s as if I’m in the middle of everything,” said Kibee.

In a woeful tone, 13-year-old Danielle Warren said she lost a friend to violence.

“My friend, who was 15, got shot and now he’s dead,” said Danielle, who attends Meadowbrook High School.

She appealed to gunmen to cease committing crimes.

“Criminals need to stop. A nuh like when you shoot, the bullet have eye or mouth. Crime and violence high in Jamaica, we need to deal with it,” she said.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child states that governments must protect children from violence.

It also stipulates that children have the right to get help if they have been hurt, neglected, treated badly or affected by war.

Eighteen-year-old Anthony Creary suggested that efforts can be made to help prevent violence from being a problem to children.

“We can make the men in the community know that crime affects the kids’ [ability] to attend school, youth club, getting a better education,” said the Trench Town Polytechnic College student.

“We boys mash up our own future too because we see it and feel like it right and follow [our peers], because we have no proper guidance,” he added

Fourteen-year-old Christine Beckford, who attends Tarrant High School, said, “Although I stay inside, it still affects me because there’s just this fear of what can happen to you when you go outside.”