PORUS, Manchester — Religious leaders have joined forces in an effort to restore peace to th
is south-central parish starting in the hot spot of Porus where churches have been forced to cancel night worship due to curfews imposed by the police.

Bishop Rowan Edwards, chairman of the 10,000 men and families’ movement and head of Jamaica Renew Programme, said he is among the church leaders targeting hot spots in Manchester.

“We are here in Porus and Porus is one of the eight communities that are flaring up with violence. We recognise that Mandeville particular is not the same that it used to be, Manchester on whole, so we are here in this community to send a message loud and clear to all perpetrators of crime and violence, those who are violence producers that it is time for us to change the way we behave in our communities and in this nation,” Edwards said on Thursday at a prayer breakfast in Redberry, Porus.

According to Edwards, criminals should not be allowed to continue wreaking havoc.

“We want to see Jamaicans live loving and be kind to one another, so the few men and women who are pushing the wrong things and pushing up the murder rate in this community. We are sending you a message that Jamaica doesn’t belong to you alone. There are hard-working citizens in this community… and now some of them have to be running away from their community,” he said.

“We want to see Jamaica change and that is the reason why we are here to send a message loud and clear that Porus belongs to all, not just a few,” added Edwards as he added his voice to the call to reduce Jamaica’s murder figure for 2025.

“We want to take this down below the 1,000 range. We are calling on all Jamaicans to come together. Let us bring the murder rate down below the 1,000 range for 2025. Jamaica is a blessed nation and must continue to be blessed and not to be destroyed by evil men who are pushing violence,” said Edwards.

“We are letting it known that Porus must change and all the other communities that surround Mandeville,” he added.

The Manchester Police Division recorded a 19 per cent decrease in major crimes last year when compared to 2023, but the parish recorded 50 murders up from 44 the previous year. Of the 50 murders, Porus recorded five between September and December.

Bishop Gary Thompson, host pastor of the Glad Tidings Church in Redberry, said the curfew in Porus has affected the church over the past four months.

“It has impacted us greatly, so much that we plan programmes that could not happen, because even our rally that was planned for October could not take place, because of the curfew,” said Thompson.

“We rescheduled the rally for another time and it was also another curfew that put it off. We rescheduled that for a Sunday and we said yes, we could have it on a Sunday, then for the third time we did not have it. We had to do a makeshift internal rally in a Sunday morning service,” Thompson added.

He pointed out that the church has been forced to go online similar to during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have to resort to doing prayer meetings and Bible studies online. Thank God we have Wednesdays, our fasting day in-house, it has really impacted us. When it comes to the police I commend them a whole lot on what they are doing… We are working with them and we do what we have to do so that the communities can come together and peace can reign,” said Thompson.

In the meantime Reverend Paul Blake Jr, chairman of the Porus Ministers’ Association and coordinator of the Porus Renew Initiative, said the church is striving for peace in Porus.

“We see the crime in Porus with even now Porus being under curfew. We really see that the church needs to be involved and we feel the call to respond. We have started to initiate initiatives to solve the problems in Porus,” said Blake Jr.

“For the rest of this month, starting on the 22nd, we will be having street meetings in some of the volatile communities, the hot spots that the police have identified and on the 25th we are having a rally targeting the children. We have been supporting the schools. On the 26th we will have a mega street meeting across from the Porus police station,” added Blake Jr.

Following the prayer breakfast the religious leaders walked through Porus and its environs.