Teachers to Lend Support to Crime Fight

Elena Smith

2017 was a record year for murders in recent history – one shy of the 2012 murder count. And three days into the New Year, there have been two murders already. It is still too early to tell what the numbers will look like for the rest of the year, but the concern is real and social partners like the Belize National Teachers Union agrees that more needs to be done to curb the growing acts of violence in the country. National president Elena Smith says that we cannot depend solely on the work of the police, but the entire country needs to play a part, including the teachers.

Elena Smith, National President, B.N.T.U.

“I think it has to be a joint effort. The police cannot do it on its own. We have seen that they have tried several means of addressing it and we have not seen much of a difference.  We have to find ways and means of getting to our parents. Somehow, helping them so that they can be able to better rear their children, especially those who have males. These children can grow up with a different trend of thought because we have seen that even from the youngest child now. When there are conflicts, we see how they want to resolve those conflicts and the first thing is to hit back and as they get older and learn we get them at school as five year olds, ‘ah wah bring mi pa come shoot yuh’ and that kinda comment you get from a five year old child. And so that is the kind of society that they are living and so as teachers we need to try  do our part to instill in our children that there is a better way of  addressing conflict. But also we have to find ways of addressing the parents and see how we can assist them in being better able to raise these children with better values and morals so that when they grow older they know that conflict can be resolved peacefully. So, it is said, it take the entire village to help these children and help our community, the police; they have tried.”