Carisa Lee

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has called on re­li­gious bod­ies to in­stil in the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, es­pe­cial­ly among par­ents, the im­por­tance of tak­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their chil­dren by teach­ing them right from wrong so that they steer clear of a crim­i­nal path.

He urged par­ents to not just raise their chil­dren “and let them loose on the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty and hope that the teacher suc­ceeds or worse, the po­lice suc­ceeds.”

Speak­ing at the of­fi­cial han­dover cer­e­mo­ny for Hayes Court at Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah West, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Dr Row­ley said re­li­gion had pre­vi­ous­ly played its part in steer­ing chil­dren on the right path.

“What re­li­gion was en­gen­der­ing in young peo­ple was an un­der­stand­ing that there is good and there’s evil, that there is truth and there is a false truth, that there is am­bi­tion and lack of am­bi­tion and that there is re­spect and dis­re­spect,” he said.

Dr Row­ley said re­li­gion al­so taught the youth there is right and wrong; there’s a choice to make and there are con­se­quences for mak­ing the wrong choic­es.

“And if that is the on­ly rea­son why we en­cour­age re­li­gion in our na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, then that’s a good enough rea­son,” he ex­plained.

The PM called di­rect­ly on An­gli­can Bish­op, the Right Rev­erend Claude Berkley, to share this mes­sage with his col­leagues.

He said re­li­gious bod­ies con­tributed to what is called the “old time days,” when the kind of be­hav­iour we see in our pop­u­la­tion to­day was not known, adding with­out that re­li­gious pres­ence, it leaves room for the youth to be pol­lut­ed by oth­er neg­a­tive in­flu­ences and their be­hav­iour is de­te­ri­o­rat­ing.

“Be­cause there are too many in­stances of the drug deal­er, the gang leader and the ne’er-do-well suc­ceed­ing in re­plac­ing in what the church used to do,” he said.

How­ev­er, in an ap­par­ent ref­er­ence to the re­cent rise in school vi­o­lence and the in­crease in young crim­i­nal of­fend­ers, the PM made it clear no one per­son is to blame for the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, as it’s every­one’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to guide the youth along the right path.

“We have the beau­ty of our chil­dren, we need to pre­serve that. We have the beau­ty of our coun­try, we should pre­serve that and we should dis­re­gard any­one who tells you Trinidad is not a re­al place,” he said.

Re­spond­ing to Dr Row­ley, Rev­erend Berkley said the An­gli­can Church has been work­ing on ad­dress­ing the is­sues with the youth for some time now.

Through a task force re­port im­ple­ment­ed at all An­gli­can pri­ma­ry schools, Rev­erend Berkley said he and his team learned more about their stu­dents’ needs and now they are im­ple­ment­ing mea­sures to ad­dress them.

Mat­ters of teacher re­cruit­ment, train­ing and prepa­ra­tion of teach­ers for teach­ing in An­gli­can schools, and mat­ters of se­lec­tion of per­sons with dif­fer­ent roles were some of the ar­eas they need­ed to ad­dress.

“We have re­vised our school board, our pri­ma­ry school Board in par­tic­u­lar, and chal­lenged the Sec­ondary school board in re­spect of how we might as­sist the chil­dren in mat­ters of par­ent­ing,” Rev­erend Berkley said.

He said the moth­ers’ union has al­so been car­ry­ing out par­ent­ing cours­es across the dio­ce­ses and are await­ing a new cy­cle.

The An­gli­can Church al­so wants to re­sume home vis­its, where parish mem­bers meet and speak with mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty.

“So, I agree with the call of the Prime Min­is­ter, some­thing has gone wrong, but when I join the cho­rus for prayer, it is not just of­fer­ing words but prayer changes at­ti­tudes, it en­cour­ages ac­tion and it takes strate­gic re­spons­es to try to treat with the prob­lem at hand,” he ex­plained.

Rev­erend Berkley said An­gli­cans have a cer­tain prag­ma­tism where they pray but they al­so do.

“So it is not like a veiled wish in the sky just some­thing we throw at you, well just pray, no you pray and you act as best as you can and God see­ing your ef­fort, see­ing the need and hear­ing the plea will come to your sup­port and take us to an­oth­er lev­el,” he said.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day on the is­sue, In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion (IRO) head, Pan­dit Lloyd Mukram Sir­joo, said the church has al­ways been in the com­mu­ni­ties. How­ev­er, he said for the kind of sup­port they need, the church does not have the fi­nances to do so.

“Peo­ple are suf­fer­ing out­side here,” he said.

Pan­dit Sir­joo said a lot of the is­sues be­gin in the home and if the home does not have the ne­ces­si­ties for a good life (food, cloth­ing, se­cu­ri­ty), then the cy­cle of vi­o­lence will con­tin­ue.

“Those things are lack­ing in many homes…peo­ple are fight­ing for sur­vival,” he said.

He said com­mu­ni­ties should not on­ly re­ceive as­sis­tance when there is a dis­as­ter but year-round.

Hayes Court was com­plet­ed in 1910 and is one of the Mag­nif­i­cent Sev­en build­ings around the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

It is the of­fi­cial res­i­dence of the Bish­op of the An­gli­can Church of T&T, and ac­cord­ing to Rev­erend Berkley, cost just over $6 mil­lion to re­store. Rev­erend Berkley cur­rent­ly lives else­where but said the build­ing will be used oth­er­wise.