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May 22, 2015
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J'cans urged to adopt community approach in raising children

Minister of the Faith Cathedral Deliverance Centre, Denise Samuels, has called on Jamaicans to adopt the community approach in raising and caring for the nation's children.

"The increasing atrocities against our children have certainly kept me praying. We cannot deny that what is consistently needed are divine interventions and that is why, as a nation, we have to get back to observing the community approach in raising and caring for our children," Minister Samuels said.

She was speaking at the National Workers' Week and Labour Day Thanksgiving Church Service, held on Sunday at the Greater Grace Temple, 65A Deanery Road in Kingston.

The service, organised by the Committee for the Promotion of National Religious Services, was held under the theme, 'Labour of Love: Nurturing Our Children'.

Present at the service, were Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, Minister of Youth and Culture, Lisa Hanna, Minister of State in the Ministry of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining, Julian Robinson, members of the diplomatic corps, and other dignitaries.

Samuels also commended the government for focusing on safeguarding the welfare of the nation's children for this year's National Labour Day activities.

Expounding on the theme for Workers' Week and Labour Day, she said that it was "relevant and timely".

"It highlights the fact that love is not a noun, it is a verb and nurturing our children is not a one-time event, but it is a consistent effort by all. Children are extremely important to God and they form an integral part of our family system and development as a nation," she said.

She further related a story about a man who had seen a drowning man and immediately threw him a rope, but without holding on to the other end.

"We throw our children ropes by telling them that they should be disciplined, but we don't hold on to the other end by setting the example in our actions, in our words. instead, our children hear and see adults being disrespectful and abusing each other," she continued.

In making her plea for better parenting, the minister urged Jamaicans to set examples of love and being neighbourly.

"When we throw ropes to our children, what we are in essence doing is asking them to take a leap of faith by reaching out and holding on to their end and, as would any drowning person do," she added.

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