City youths discuss crime
With so many young people making the headlines these days for all the wrong reasons, the Ministry of Human Development and UNICEF decided to hold a forum in which teens can discuss violence and the juvenile justice system. News Five was at the Belize Institute of Management this morning.
Patrick Jones, Reporting
The room full of young people from various Belize City High Schools and the prison came together to talk about crime and violence and how it affects them. The rap session, organized by the United Nation?s Children?s Fund, is part of a series of forums designed to give youths an outlet for their ideas. UNICEF programme officer Roy Bowen says too often adults are not tuning in to young people.
Roy Bowen, UNICEF Programme Officer
?That also, but I think many times we sit down is different forums and we talk about what needs to happen for young people. This is an opportunity for them to express themselves in their language. How they feel, what they think needs to happen, as opposed to other people sitting down and saying exactly what is happening.?
Keenan Welch
?If you really check it out when you go talk to wah adult in a way like fuh tell them weh the go on, they will look pan one side ah the story. They will watch pan only the bad side weh you di do, but they noh di watch weh deh push you fuh do that bad thing deh. I no think they the listen really enough.?
Keenan Welch, an out of school youth, echoed the sentiments of other forum participants who believe that simply giving them a chance to get things off their chest, would go a long way to easing the burden of the impact of crime and violence on the next generation.
Jamaal Domingo, Student, Excelsior High School
?I think it affects you negatively because maybe it changes your opinion on the society and how you think overall about where you live and thing like that.?
Patrick Jones
?Do you think adults are listening to young people enough??
Jamaal Domingo
?Well I think they should be more open to young people and like give them more change to prove themselves. Basically, you only got one chance to make a first impression, but I think like how they are young people and they are just the get to cooperate and thing with adults we should give them more space, mek them interact with other people and prove themselves.?
Kimberly Allen, Wesley College
?In general I would say no because a percentage of adults only take the time to look after their own children and they loose track on what is going on in the community with other children who have nobody to look after them.?
But while organizations like UNICEF are giving young people a chance to voice their opinions on issues affecting them, question is: are grown up ready to hear what they have to say?
Roy Bowen
?We are hoping so because we talk about children are the future. We believe that the future is now. We believe that whatever happens needs to happen within the area of protecting children, protecting children from violence, protecting children from environments that breed violence and giving children and opportunity to say guess what; we can make that contribution; we think these are some of the things that we can do to chance the situation.?
The issue of crime and violence and young people is not an overnight phenomenon. In fact, talking with some of the young people, it is clear that they have been closely observing and learning from the behavior of people who should know better.
Keenan Welch
?With wah lot a crime and thing like stop fuh we freedom and thing and mek we kinda can?t move out how we want. Because, on the streets, you could just be walking on the streets and thing, and gunshot just the fire and thing like that, you could just be at the wrong place and the wrong time, you could get hit. then the elders when they the start with the violence and the shoot up and the bat up one another, the younger youths and thing, you know, they pick up off of that because they watch and learn off of everything that the adults them do. So if they see the adults them do that, they will follow up that same way and that dah like them the influence we.?
Welch says that while most adults see young people as only looking for handouts, all they are asking for is a chance to help themselves.
Keenan Welch
?Try find something fuh them. Mek they just come in a community and find work and so for the youths dem pan the street, you know; put some of them back dah school and thing; because most of the time they say some of the youths dem noh want go dah school. Some of the families are poor; they can?t even put their pickney dah school. They barely could feeds their family for the week, so the youths dem need fuh deh pan the street fuh try hustle them kind a way, but if somebody come bout weh could at least give them a job, or put them back dah school, support them in a some kind a way, it will be a big change.?
Also at today’s forum, a twenty-minute video offering a situation analysis of crime and violence and its impact on young people was launched. The documentary looks at several issues including the age of criminal responsibility, discussing at what age should a child be put in juvenile justice system. UNICEF hopes that when the documentary is release, it will serve as a thought starter for public discussion on the issue.
