August Town needs $1m to send peace co-ordinators overseas
RESIDENTS of August Town, Kingston are seeking to raise $1 million to send five peace co-ordinators to the United States (US) to participate in training courses geared at strengthening peace building efforts already underway in that community.
The five co-ordinators were recently accepted to the Summer Peace Building Institute of the Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia but are unable to meet tuition, travel and other costs associated with the two-week course.
Each peace co-ordinator is expected to participate in two courses, starting May 5.
But with less than two months before the start of the programme, the August Town Crime Watch Community programme has stepped up efforts to raise the required funds.
To date, the Mennonite Central Committee of Jamaica has pledged to foot the tuition bill of all the candidates, but that donation will only cover approximately 25 per cent of the total cost, community organisers say.
“Right now we are facing the dual hurdle of financing and visa acquisition for the group,” said Kenneth Wilson, co-ordinator of the August Town Crime Watch Community programme.
Although Wilson could not elaborate on the activities the group would engage in to raise the funds, he did invite donations from the private sector and the public in general.
“Out of this training will come a great benefit, because if we can arrest the problem of violence in one community, then maybe peace can spread to other communities,” Wilson argued.
Wilson, one of the five co-ordinators slated to travel to the US, has played an instrumental role in peace efforts in the greater August Town community, partly the result, he says, of his participation in the Peace Building Institute’s 2000 session. At that time, Wilson did a course in Restorative Justice, one that has defined much of the approach in dealing with violence in the August Town area.
Due to the efforts of the government-sponsored Peace Management Initiative, agencies such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and community members like Wilson, the parties involved have managed to maintain peace in the area noticeably longer than in similar violence-plagued communities.
But last year, just after the October 16 general elections, the relatively long period of peace within the area was shattered when tensions in the Goldsmith Villa and Hermitage areas rose to boiling point. Long standing gang feuds, bitter political enmity and wanton criminality reared their ugly heads, resulting in a series of bloody reprisal killings that left seven people dead in the space of one week.
Wilson hopes that by having some of the influential young men from those communities attend the courses, the communities can work towards creating a lasting and sustainable peace.
“Yes, there have been setbacks,” he said, referring to last year’s upsurge in violence.
“But we are back on track, and this programme will help to increase the number of people who can intervene and help to build peace. I believe that if we continue to have more people learn how to engage in dialogue, that will also help to keep the community on track to peace,” he added.
The other four members of the group are community activists Ricardo Ellis of August Town, David Lewis of Hermitage, Garfield Mendez of Goldsmith Villa, and Inspector Budhoo of the August Town Police.
Donations to the August Town Peace Building programme can be made at the Liguanea branch of the Bank of Nova Scotia, account number 802269.