Re­li­gious lead­ers ac­com­pa­nied by po­lice and busi­ness cham­ber heads marched through the crime hotspots in La Ro­main on Eman­ci­pa­tion Day urg­ing youths to give up their guns and end crime.

The pro­ces­sion in­volved the Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, the La Ro­main com­mu­ni­ty po­lice and four evan­gel­i­cal church­es in the com­mu­ni­ty—Re­vival Taber­na­cle, Re­vival Mis­sion, Way to Je­sus Min­istry and New Tes­ta­ment Church of God. 

Urg­ing youths to show faith in God as they grap­pled with is­sues of un­em­ploy­ment and ris­ing food and fu­el prices, GS­FCC pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh said the ini­tia­tive was geared at reach­ing the hearts of youths.

“Crime is af­fect­ing busi­ness­es, house­holds and res­i­dences. The church­es have em­barked on this ini­tia­tive to tar­get hotspots and high­light to the youths that we should re­turn to God,” Singh said.

He added: “What­ev­er faith you be­lieve in, we are one re­li­gion, one God and one peo­ple.”

He said T&T is fac­ing a “crim­i­nal cri­sis.”

“Crime is out of con­trol and we have to re­spond to prayer, faith, good­will and ap­peal to youths,” Singh said as the pro­ces­sion sang evan­gel­i­cal songs.

Singh added: “Re­cent­ly we faced a ter­ri­ble sit­u­a­tion where TSTT was shut down in South. The lack of con­nec­tiv­i­ty af­fect­ed homes, busi­ness­es, and stu­dents do­ing lessons. Crime con­tin­ues and right here we can see ev­i­dence of ca­bles cut, caus­ing a haz­ard to in­no­cent peo­ple.”

He not­ed: “We are here to­day to try to en­cour­age cit­i­zens to be bet­ter. The po­lice be­lieve in this ini­tia­tive and we be­lieve if we all work to­geth­er, we can con­trol it be­fore it gets even worse.”

Mean­while, Ver­li­cia Beck­les called for an end to witch­craft, pros­ti­tu­tion, al­co­holism and drug abuse. 

With her hands out­stretched, Beck­les prayed for the en­tire com­mu­ni­ty to be free from crime.

In an in­ter­view dur­ing the pro­ces­sion, Pas­tor Don­ald­son Fi­garo said the church had a role to play in re­duc­ing the so­cial bur­den that many peo­ple cur­rent­ly faced. He said they had an on­go­ing ham­per dri­ve for the La Ro­main com­mu­ni­ty, not­ing that ris­ing crime was a prob­lem in T&T.

“This is an evan­ge­lis­tic cam­paign, to min­is­ter to peo­ple. We want to lift up Je­sus and present the gospel to all. We have seen so many of the ills in our so­ci­ety and we be­lieve the church can do some­thing and bring about change if we min­is­ter to the com­mu­ni­ty,” he added.

He said Eman­ci­pa­tion Day was an apt time to min­is­ter as peo­ple want­ed free­dom from crime.

The pro­ces­sion went through the South­ern Main Road and end­ed at Dun­can Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do.