New­ly-in­stalled mod­er­a­tor of the Pres­by­ter­ian Church Rev­erend Joy Ab­dul-Mo­han says the Pres­by­ter­ian church­es will con­sid­er open­ing their schools and church­es to Venezue­lan mi­grants and refugees.

Speak­ing to the me­dia af­ter be­ing of­fi­cial­ly ap­point­ed unan­i­mous­ly by the Pres­by­ter­ian cler­gy and syn­od, Ab­dul-Mo­han said she planned to con­tin­ue the poli­cies of her pre­de­ces­sor Annabell Lal­la-Ramkelawan and pi­o­neer changes for the ad­vance­ment of women and the un­der­priv­i­leged.

The for­mer In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor is the third con­sec­u­tive woman to be ap­point­ed to the po­si­tion as mod­er­a­tor.

She said some of the chal­lenges fac­ing T&T in­clud­ed the break­down of fam­i­ly life, crime, vi­o­lence and hope­less­ness among peo­ple.

Asked how she in­tend­ed to tack­le the grad­ual de­cline of mem­ber­ship in the Pres­by­ter­ian church, Ab­dul-Mo­han said she planned to de­vel­op a strate­gic plan to reach out to the op­pressed.

Asked whether the church planned to open its schools for Venezue­lan mi­grants and refugees, Ab­dul-Mo­han said: “Yes, that’s on the list. The Pres­by­ter­ian church has is­sued state­ments con­cern­ing the cur­rent is­sues of crime, vi­o­lence and hu­man traf­fick­ing. We are con­cerned about it.”

She said their sis­ter church­es in Cana­da and the Unit­ed States had al­so opened their doors to refugees.

“It is part of our re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to seek out the lost, the op­pressed, the ex­ploit­ed and mar­gin­alised. We al­so have to be mind­ful that there may be crim­i­nal el­e­ments with­in that group of peo­ple. They are hu­man just like us. If there is one thing our faith stands for in Christ is that we must em­brace all as hu­mans,” she added.

Ab­dul-Mo­han al­so said politi­cians must go back to ba­sics and look af­ter the needs of the com­mu­ni­ty.

“I think we are lack­ing that from the top to the bot­tom,” she said.

Asked whether she planned to take a stance on the is­sue of equal rights for the LGBTQ com­mu­ni­ty, Ab­dul-Mo­han said a task force had been ap­point­ed to look at this.

“It in­cludes all stake­hold­ers. Peo­ple need to be ed­u­cat­ed to un­der­stand what af­fects the life of an in­di­vid­ual whether it is for women, the un­der­priv­i­leged or those of a dif­fer­ent sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion,” she added.

She not­ed that the Pres­by­ter­ian church­es of Cana­da and Unit­ed States took years to make a pro­nounce­ment on same-sex mar­riage and the church was split down the mid­dle.

“We don’t want to be that way, we are al­ready small in num­bers. We will do the re­search and make a state­ment that will be in­clu­sive and in­clude God’s peo­ple as we see them. The com­mit­tee has on­ly met two or three times. We have to main­tain our be­liefs in terms of what is ap­plied in re­la­tion to our doc­trines and what is law-abid­ing,” she added.

She said do­ing the re­search on same-sex re­la­tions was jus­ti­fi­able.

“We are bas­ing the re­search on the gospel of love and there will be eq­ui­ty, equal­i­ty and re­spect for all. The love of Christ preached un­con­di­tion­al love. Our prin­ci­ples are based on the gospel of un­con­di­tion­al love,” she added.

She not­ed that the Syn­od will present a re­port which will be shared with all the mem­ber­ship.

Ab­dul-Mo­han added that the Board of Youth Af­fairs and the Na­tion­al Youth Co­or­di­na­tor will con­tin­ue its mem­ber­ship dri­ve to reach out to peo­ple who feel they are on the fringes of the church.

“We will reach out to them and bring them back to the folds of the church,” she added.