KINGSTON, Jamaica– Having impacted more than 500 upper-high-school boys across eight institutions in St Thomas, organisers of the ‘Echoes of Change: The Problem with the P’ project are calling on administrators to continue the engagement on the issue of sexual violence.

The project is the brainchild of the Angelic Ladies Society, a non-profit organisation, with funding from the European Union (EU).

Through the initiative, the youngsters participated in sensitisation workshops on topics such as sexual violence, inappropriate touching, sex videos, consent, the age of consent and healthy masculinity.

During the recent closing ceremony for the project, stakeholders highlighted the need for the messages to be consistently delivered to the target audience for maximum effect.

Male Empowerment Officer at the Bureau of Gender Affairs, Nachan Foster, said, “We need to have the school administrators buying into the importance of discussing these topics. If the persons at the top do not buy into it, the students won’t get the true information that they need.”

He suggested that one way in which schools can maintain the momentum is to encourage competitions among students on the topics.

“I would encourage debate competitions, inter-school competitions… come up with different competitions just to keep the information and the dialogue flowing,” he suggested.

He proposed other creative outlets utilising artificial intelligence (AI).

“These are just different ideas to get the conversation going; not just once a year,” he said.

During a panel discussion at the event, participants suggested that schools could incorporate lessons on sexual violence in guidance and counselling sessions.

Founder and Executive Director of the Angelic Ladies Society, Sara-Lou Morgan-Walker, in her remarks, said that a challenge faced during the execution of the project was establishing communication with some schools electronically.

She applauded the guidance counsellors and deans of discipline for providing logistical support where possible.

For her part, Youth Programme Implementation Director at the Ministry of Education, Youth, Skills and Information, Donnette Batchan-Walker, hailed the stakeholders for their “tremendous work” on the project.

“It is very important that we spend some time and focus on our young men, and so I really do applaud this initiative,” Morgan-Walker said.

She noted that the project is “a valuable behaviour modification initiative endorsed by the Youth and Adolescent Policy Division, which was designed and implemented with you (young men) in mind”.

“This is an excellent initiative, and we acknowledge that it supports the Ministry’s mandate for fostering an educated and empowered citizenry geared towards peace, environmental stewardship, inclusivity and holistic development. It is our hope that the knowledge, insights and experiences gained from the initiative will advance the objective of well-informed, targeted, data-driven activities that meet and exceed their project goals and objectives for our young people,” the director said.

– JIS