The Jamaica Star :: News :: An inner-city renewal

Kimoni Harris, Staff Reporter

The umbrella organisation Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF) is embarking on an inner-city renewal programme and living up to its motto, 'Investing for community development' to prevent crime and violence in Jamaica.

This programme will be implemented in the form of summer camps in certain volatile communities and it will also be targeting the risk groups for crime and violence. This programme is strongly supported by the Ministry of Health and is geared towards assisting troubled children getting emotionally adjusted in the society.

More than 2,400 children will benefit from summer camps islandwide. The major objective of the intervention is to provide communities and organisations with access to resources to develop and implement programmes addressing the needs of the youth.

Of the programmes to be supported by the JSIF, the St Andrew Care Centre, a project of the St Andrew Parish Church, is the flagship camp. The intervention is to support summer activities for 25 street boys, age 13-19, in the Half-Way Tree area. The camp forms part of the year-round activities of the care centre which includes remedial classes and programmes for skills development and family support services.

Important programmes

The programmes are seen as important elements in addressing the social-development issues that are affecting the young and can be used as an avenue for providing alternative activities for youth in the summer.

Grace-Ann Scarlett, social services co-ordinator of the JSIF, told the STAR, "I think that emotional intelligence is a great way of getting kids adjusted in society; it focuses on their emotional needs."

JSIF's Inner-City Basic Services Project consists of 12 summer camps for 1,300 children. The funding will cost approximately $12 million. The project takes children from the more volatile communities such as Federal Gardens, Whitfield Town, Tawes Pen, Lauriston, Knollis, Bucknor, Rectory Lands and Flankers.