You couldn’t miss the passion in her voice and eyes each time Mrs Betty Ann Blaine talked about children — although she was never given to glib comments.

However, she had a deep and abiding belief — as she stated in her Heart to Heart column for this newspaper in 2008 — that “children should be treated as a precious heritage from God with inalienable rights to peace, prosperity and purpose”.

In that column, Mrs Blaine also expressed hope that Jamaica would be seen as a land where parents, living in loving relationships, understand their roles as stewards of God’s legacy and His will.

We suspect that Mrs Blaine, even as she battled illness, was pained by the recent surge of violence in schools. The problem is not new, though it does appear to be getting worse. Also, of course, modern communication technologies are circulating these troubling events to a wider audience in real time.

We are told that Mrs Blaine, who passed on Monday morning following a long illness, worked tirelessly on WhatsApp to continue her advocacy. That’s not surprising for this outstanding Jamaican who refused to yield in the face of adversity.

Jamaicans first came face-to-face with that tenacity when Mrs Blaine, after completing a master’s degree in the United States, put aside her ambition to pursue a doctorate after learning that the Voluntary Organisation for the Upliftment of Children (VOUCH) was on the verge of closure due to lack of funds.

Determined to prevent that from happening Mrs Blaine got some friends together and, without any money of their own, staged a concert at the Apollo Theatre in New York featuring some of Jamaica’s top musical artistes at the time.

The sold-out concert earned enough to keep VOUCH open, allowing it to continue meeting its mandate of providing a range of social and educational services to children, including those with special needs.

We recall her founding Youth Opportunities Unlimited in 1992 and Hear The Children’s Cry in 2002.

The nation also shared her fierce advocacy for the implementation of an alert system after the abduction, rape and murder of 11-year-old Ananda Dean in 2008.

Today, that system, known as Ananda Alert, ensures that instead of the previous backward policy of parents and guardians having to wait 24 hours to report a child missing, such a report is taken immediately to trigger follow-up action.

We also remember Mrs Blaine’s entry into politics, fuelled by her desire to serve at another level. Her New Nation Coalition — like all third parties formed since Jamaica gained political independence — failed to shake the status quo, but Mrs Blaine spoke feelingly of the culture of mendicancy that greeted her on the hustings.

It broke her heart, she said in her Observer column in April 2011, because even as she told those offering to sell their votes that they were not slaves to be bought and sold — and some of them understood — she “saw in their eyes that it was all about survival”.

That probably must have been the lowest point in her life of public service. Very possibly, it strengthened her advocacy for children and adolescents.

Her passing has robbed Jamaica of a treasure. We should do all we can to preserve her legacy.

Our condolence to her family and friends.