PRIME Minister Andrew Holness on Friday met with five Grade 6 students from rural Jamaica who had written to him highlighting concerns about a number of issues affecting Jamaica, and commended them for showing interest in the country’s development.

“I think it’s a very good initiative that from a young age you participate in the democracy of the country,” Holness told the students — Natanyah Walters, Eashan Edwards, Tajaire Gayle, Arianna Boothe, and Jenell Campbell, all 11 years old — at a meeting in his office, a day after he had returned from a business trip to the United States.

“There are many countries around the world where citizens are not able to tell the Government how they feel. This is not the case in Jamaica… from an early age we encourage our young people to be vocal about how they feel about their country and the issues they face, and historically… governments pay attention and listen. So the invitation here today is to exemplify this, to show Jamaica that the Government listens, the Government pays attention, and that your voice matters,” he said.

Holness had invited the students from Snowdon Primary and Infant School in Manchester to Jamaica House after the Jamaica Observer last Sunday reported that they had written individual letters to him drawing attention to irresponsible practices among some Jamaicans of lighting fires, beach pollution, blocked drains, overfishing as it relates to parrotfish, and creating a dust from highway construction.

The students had actually intended to send the letters directly to Holness but chose instead to send them to the Observer, knowing that he would see them when they were published.

“When the PM read the letters in the Observer last Sunday he was moved and immediately directed that he meet with them. He left the the island for a working visit to the US Monday morning, returned Thursday night, and this was his first meeting back in office on Friday morning,” Press Secretary Naomi Francis told the Sunday Observer on Saturday.

“The students and teachers were literally overjoyed. They sat with Prime Minister Holness and outlined the environmental issues as they saw it and were very vocal in giving their recommendations for solutions. They were grateful and fully utilised the opportunity to meet with the head of government for their chance to impact change,” Francis added.‎

During the meeting, which was attended by the school’s Principal Denise Campbell-Brown and the students’ teacher Kristen Chedda, the five children reiterated their concerns and offered solutions to the problems.

Holness, in response, commended them for not only highlighting the issues but offering answers.

In relation to Arianna Boothe’s concern about overfishing, particularly as it relates to the danger to coral reef by catching parrotfish, Holness said he agreed with her and stated that a part of the solution to many of the problems we face, whether it is global warming, garbage disposal or pollution “really comes down to how we behave as citizens… What are we willing to forego in order to protect a global good?”

He said the process of public education is working but acknowledged that it may not be “fast enough”.

“But there is hope that you, a very young child, would have seen this as something important enough to raise with the highest level of leadership in the land, and that is how we have to change Jamaica. We have to get people to change themselves because it is easier to get people to comply than to enforce,” he said, and encouraged the student to “make an appeal to our fishermen, and to our consumers to change how they consume fish”.

Jenell Campbell’s focus on dust from highway, and other road construction, affecting people with asthma got special attention from Holness who told the students that he is asthmatic.

“When I was growing up I suffered from very serious asthma attacks so I totally appreciate the discomfort and the public health crisis that our lack of control of air pollutants is causing,” he said.

“So again, let me say that the approach that you have taken is very good — and in this instance Government has to take full responsibility. It is the duty of Government to ensure that it puts in place all the protective measures for the citizens when these roadworks are taking place, and I must confess that we have not done a very good job of it,” he said.

He acknowledged her suggestion to sprinkle the roads during construction, pointing out that while it is being done the authorities “will strive to do better” — even as they recognise that it is “almost impossible to 100 per cent control the dust emissions from these roadworks” as they are being done on existing infrastructure.

Eashan Edwards’ point that too many people are polluting the island’s beaches and that this can lead to marine pollution as well was hailed by the prime minister as “a very enlightened position”.

Responding to her suggestion to erect anti-littering signs on beaches and impose a “small” fine for people found guilty of littering, Holness said while enforcement would have some impact, behavioural change would generate greater results.

“How do we get [people] to have a deeper appreciation of the environment… because travel waste is a major thing in Jamaica. You drive along the roads and you see it littered with plastic, and people are just walking past it and it doesn’t offend them. It’s as if it means nothing to them that their environment is polluted,” the prime minister said.

He suggested that every Jamaican citizen should become an environmental warden and regard pollution “as a disrespect to them, to the point where they would turn to their friends and say, ‘Don’t do that.’

“I see that in you, that it is something that bothers you, and that you will become an advocate in your class and with your friends to create a new Jamaican who is not waiting on the Government or depending on tougher laws but because being clean means being Jamaican, [and being Jamaican means] we don’t throw our plastics in the streets or [on] the beach or in the gullies,” he added.