MONTEGO BAY, St James -The Western Jamaica Conference of Seventh-day Adventist Churches has launched a massive mentorship programme with ambitions to steer 7,000 unattached youths in western Jamaica away from violent paths.
“I grew up as a boy where boys were afraid of grown men. Now I am an old man and I have discovered that old men are afraid of little boys,” explained the conceptualiser of the colossal mentorship programme, Pastor Glen Samuels.
“The mentorship of our young people is to instil in them with wholesome values, Godly attitudes, but more so to help them in practical context to handle conflicts, to learn to talk through simple challenges, to understand that it is not every violent act you see you must post on social media,” added Samuels, who heads the West Jamaica Conference of Seventh-day Adventist Church.
He disclosed that by the end of next month, coaches are to be selected and prepared from among the young in Adventist churches in the parishes of St James, Hanover, Westmoreland, and St Elizabeth to work in pairs to locate 7,000 of their at-risk contemporaries “on the corner” and counsel them.
