The stories and conditions of Jamaica’s most vulnerable children are heartbreaking and, while the Peace and Love in Society (PALS) programme has much outreach and counselling to give students, administrators say it simply doesn’t have the financial backing which, in the last three decades, has significantly dried up.
Instead of embarking on wholescale programmes targeting as many schools as possible, as was previously the case, PALS organisers say that in recent years they have had to narrow their efforts to a few select students for whom school administrators have recommended counselling. So far those targeted interventions have benefited students in Clarendon, St Catherine and Kingston.
Money is the primary concern, explained Janilee Abrikian, general manager at PALS Jamaica.
“But we have also not been able to get the funding like in the old days to take the programme into schools. When Oliver Clarke was able to attract big sums of money from bauxite companies, that is what allowed us to take the programme to schools free of cost,” explained Abrikian, referencing the late former chairman of the RJRGLEANER Communications Group.
“When that funding wasn’t happening anymore, we started getting calls to come and do workshops for teachers and so on. I tell them that we have to charge, and they don’t call back. So you then realise that you have to diversify a bit. However, we have still diversified in the same area of behaviour,” she explained, adding that the behaviour modification training was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
“It is for at-risk students. It is an afternoon programme, and the schools normally recommend it to students who have anger management issues… . The groups are not large because you have to develop trust, and you are trying to get them eventually to share what their issues are,” she continued.
Abrikian was speaking with The Gleaner during yesterday’s Peace Day concert put on by PALS in collaboration with the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) and several corporate sponsors at the Ranny Williams Entertainment Centre in St Andrew. Yesterday’s ceremony, recognising the 30th anniversary of Peace Day, featured cultural pieces from several schools in attendance.
BENEFICIAL PROGRAMME
Abrikian listed case upon case where youngsters who have battled anger management issues have either been arrested or killed by the police or rivals. In other cases, parental and home conditions have fuelled the failures of some students who could have benefited greatly from the programme, she said.
“One child, we had been teaching him the word ‘negotiation’, and so he had this new word in his vocabulary. He went home and tried this on his mother, and she told him the next time he brought it up, she would slap him,” she continued, also citing another troubled student who was shot and killed by police in West Kingston recently. He was 16 years old.
“He was in a fight every day but he never missed a session, and he was always on time and very artistic. His father served time in jail, was killed when he came out of jail and he had several siblings from different fathers,” she said. “It breaks my heart, but I know I can’t give him electricity, potable water, but we try to feed their minds and empower them to make better decisions.”
Schools are the important drivers in society, and hence PALS was established three decades ago as Peace and Love in Schools. The acronym was later revamped to Peace and Love in Society.
“Peace is not something that is going to happen overnight. It is not going to happen in a day. We have to work at it consistently, over generations and generations to create sustainable peace… . So there are lots of good reasons to support peace,” said Brian Schmidt, former PALS director.
“The charge that we would put out to the society at large, the private and the public sector, is that there needs to be more funding, and more consistent funding for our programme and similar programmes,” he emphasised.
