Recently, I was at Mount Hope Hospital and I heard stories of young mothers who were not married having four and five babies and are being paid to do so. This is how they live and survive. They are far removed from reality where one should to go to school, work hard and get a job. I recall one of the mothers saying, "I ready to make a next child you know, because this one (fifth one) just walk out of me."
Making children was easy for her it seems, but it was quite doubtful if she was able to provide for the other four. Some people cannot even have a child and to some, it is just a game.
Having a child is serious business. Bringing up a child unsupervised, with the absence of role models and revered elders, encourages youths to join the criminal elements. They become serious troublemakers at school and life expectancy among them is automatically reduced. That is why it is necessary to root out these "special children".
They should be "extracted from the environment where you misbehave and put into an environment where you are being prepared to give up that kind of life," as was stated by Dr Rowley in the press on March 19, 2014. Implementation of boot camps is one such solution. Here, well-trained army boot camp specialists deal with these uncouth youth. Soft and hard measures are required. Entrepreneurial or special skills training (soft measures) can only be introduced once bad behaviour and disrespect are eliminated.
Using the boot camp method to wrest away bad behaviour followed by the soft approach can make a serious dent on the unfortunate situation of young kids joining gangs and ruining their lives.
D Basdeo,
via e-mail