Child protection committee for St Thomas
A child Protection committee will be set up in St Thomas after a town hall meeting in the parish today.
The meeting, which begins at 4:00 pm at the New Testament Church of God in Yallahs, St Thomas, is being organised by the Child Development Agency (CDA), a department of the Ministry of Youth and Culture. It will be held under the theme: ‘Protecting Children… it is everybody’s Responsibility’.
Resource persons at the meeting will include Chief Executive Officer of the CDA Rosalee Gage-Grey, and the CDA’s director of children and family programme, Audrey Budhi.
Representatives from the Office of the Children’s Registry, Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse, National Parent Teachers’ Association, the Jamaica Constabulary Force and community-based organisations will also attend.
Regional director for the CDA’s South East Region (Kingston & St Andrew, St Catherine and St Thomas), Robert Williams, said the establishment of the child protection committee was one of the main purposes of the meeting.
“It will make the child protection sector more visible. People will know where to go, who to talk to and where to get help, so it is just a good beginning of things to come for St Thomas when it comes to child protection,” he said.
The planning of the town hall meeting, he added, has been an ongoing effort by the CDA to protect the nation’s children from abuse. Earlier this year, the CDA spoke with St Thomas residents on child abuse and protection issues at several sensitisation ‘Walk Thru’ events in Morant Bay and Yallahs.
“We did some work in terms of ‘Walk Thru’. The communities and other agencies went in and did their own thing, so the plan is to bring all the agencies together and we will candidly deal with the child protection issues, because we really want to infiltrate the parish of St Thomas; it must get the attention that other parishes get,” he said.
Williams said the meeting will also be attended by students, parents, residents of Yallahs and nearby communities and representatives of various Government agencies and departments in the parish.
“We want people to take child protection seriously; they can’t just leave everything to happen and work itself out. They must leave knowing that child protection is everybody’s business and the entire community must be looking out for our children, and everybody must be cognisant of child protection issues,” he emphasised.