Message from Douglas Orane,
Chairman & CEO, GraceKennedy Limited.
& Patron of Child Month
National Church Service Kencot Seventh Day Adventist Church,
May 1, 2004

When I was preparing to write this message, I was looking over the very useful documentation provided by the Child Month Committee and was reminded that Child Month has been observed in Jamaica for 51 years.

This says something very positive about the men and women who have shouldered the responsibility for ensuring that Jamaicans are made to focus on the status of our children. As they have pointed out in one of their papers – “Each of our member agencies on the National Child Month Committee work every day to improve the prospects of the children in their care, our efforts during Child Month serve only to highlight our shared vision for the children of Jamaica, land we love.”

Interestingly, as Patron of Child Month, I looked critically last year at the role that GraceKennedy has played over the years in assisting the Committee and came to the conclusion that we needed to make a commitment to widen and strengthen our involvement to ensure that assistance to our children in one form or another would be a year round activity and one of the priorities of our Community Outreach programmes.

I will tell you a little more about this in a while – but in the meantime, I want to make some remarks on this year’s Child Month programme.

Let me begin by congratulating the Committee under the Chairmanship of Mr. Daniel B. Gordon. I have observed that the level of organization and focus is at a very commendable level.

This fact was mirrored in the official launch ceremony, which I found to be one of the best that I have had the privilege to attend. I was particularly pleased at the participation of children both as MCs and as entertainers. I was moved to think what a wealth of talent exists among our young people and once again dedicated my company and myself to continuing greater efforts on behalf of our children.

The theme of Child Month 2004 is “Nurturing our Children for a Brighter Tomorrow.” The word nurturing has many nuances – the dictionary defines it as the process of bringing up or training, fostering care.

To me, it means ensuring our children’s welfare, physically, mentally and spiritually; in other words, we have to approach the question of bringing up our children in a holistic way – we must see that they are physically strong and healthy, mentally equipped to take their place as productive citizens in today’s world; and spiritually armed to fight against negative and evil influences which surround them and present themselves more forcefully and sharply than they did in earlier generations.

So the task of nurturing our children is indeed a job of challenging proportions.

What does this say to all of us as adults? I believe this is telling us quite clearly that this task is one for which we must join hearts and hands in every community if we hope to have a reasonable degree of success. As parents, as teachers, as social workers – we must work together for the welfare of our children.

As the old African proverb pointed out “It takes a village to raise a child” – a notion whose truth was given added currency by U.S. Senator Hilary Rodman Clinton in her book “It takes a Village.”

This approach is one which was current when we were all younger – when every adult felt a responsibility for every child in the community – and exercised this responsibility by correcting or reporting misbehaviour of any children they came across.

Urbanization has seen the decline of this important aspect of our culture, but I think we should all revisit this and see if individually we can begin to revive this spirit.

The Child Month Committee has produced a very useful document giving some ideas of what different groups in the society can do, on an ongoing basis, to nurture our children. Groups targeted include government, media, civil society, colleges and universities, NGOs and private sector organizations.

I found this information very useful and I am recommending that the Committee circulates this as widely as possible.

Finally, I promised that I’d tell you a little about our extended programme for Child Month at GraceKennedy. I imagine that most of you already know about our Homework Centres, our scholarship programmes and the mentoring programmes that are in place for children in the communities surrounding GraceKennedy.

More recently we have sponsored an Editors Forum at the Gleaner where a number of students presented views on a number of topics including parenting, the public education system, male/female roles in the society and the marginalization of males.

The quality of the presentations by participants was first class, encouraging us all to be optimistic about the country’s future.

We are in dialogue with the Child Development Agency to see how we can help, particularly with its Foster Care programme. In addition, a Staff Outreach committee under the leadership of our Chief Human Resources Manager and comprising Managers as well as HR and PR personnel has been meeting and determining programmes which it will undertake in areas such as Children’s homes, schools, etc. This Committee will work in collaboration with the other group in the company on children’s programmes and will come up with a coordinated programme which should move into high gear during this year. We believe that we are now poised as a Company to make a more significant contribution to our children’s development than we have in the past.

I wish the Child Month Committee every success in this year’s programme and pledge GraceKennedy’s continuing collaboration in “nurturing our Children for a Brighter Tomorrow.”