Our island Jamaica is really going through some hard times recently as it relates to the increase in acts of violence against our children. Recently, a fourteen year old female student was killed in the parish of St.Thomas. Since the brutal murder of the student a lot of talk can be heard about the early hours that students have to wake in order to travel several miles in order to go to school. This is a subject that I am very familiar with as I had to journey from the outskirts of Spanish Town every morning to reach school by 7:30 at Wolmer's High School for girls. Interestingly, however throughout my entire high school life I was probably late just once as I received perfect attendance for several years. This journey taught me good time management and respect for time. There were several times however when I would use my first class to catch up on some well needed sleep this didn't go down well with my teachers.
On the flip side of things, I had the privilege of having a school bus take me to school each morning so safety wasn't much of a concern. I would pass students on the road at early hours waiting in the dark for public transportation. It all comes down to the priority of our leadership,my suggestion is that school bus systems are implemented in communities that will ensure that students are able to arrive at school on time and safely. The same money that would be used to pay for public transportation could be used to pay for the maintenance of these school buses. These drivers would know which houses to go to and the times that each student need to arrive at school.
If the effort is put out in the first place to protect our children many of the problems that we face later on will be prevented. Some may say perhaps why do parents continue to send their children to these schools that are so far away. As young people don't we sometimes have to do what we can to ensure that our dreams are met? Yes , it would be ideal to attend a school that is closer to home but for those whose dream is to attend a certain school, should we then neglect to protect them because they have opted to go against what we deem as the ideal? Implementing a good bus system is one way of looking at it another simple way is that neighbours start to look our for neighbours. In times of old people would see someone walking on the road and offer them some form of assistance especially to a young child. However, because of the crime umbrella that continues to hang over our country people are very reluctant to stop and assist anyone. I implore drivers however, get to know your neighbours and their children so if possible you can give them some assistance to go to school.
It is always until something bad happens in this country before we see the need to address certain problems. Have we not seem young people heading out to school each morning, were we not aware of the harm that they face? We need to start thinking faster so that we can get things done before more harm continues to reach our children.
Comments
Post a Comment