Dialogue Being Established Between Feuding Gangs

Dawson said the plan is to ensure that the dialogue be maintained between feuding factions in order to keep the violence under control.

William Dawson

William Dawson, Chairman, Leadership Intervention Unit

“Crime and violence is not something that just goes away. There are many factors and so we’re hoping to address the root cause of some of these issues, get into these households, creating rapport with these young men and change their mindset towards each other. We know that this has been something happening for many, many years so it will not change overnight. We’re adamant that we address each component and so there are several layers of training – those that have literacy issues will be afforded the opportunity to utilize alternative educational platforms in the form of computer-aided learning skills program, for example. Some will be afforded the opportunity to get vocational disciplines and in an introductory capacity so that they can have alternatives to whatever it is that they are being bombarded by right now. So the counseling is one asset but the skills training is definitely one of the huge components that we want to make sure that they can have access to additional skills to survive. We know that not everybody is academically inclined and we have to take that into consideration. We’re very optimistic that eventually we will see a great dent in crime and violence in Belize City especially.”