MP in urgent call for community service

St James South Member of Parliament Sandra Husbands has used the unsettling discovery of a man’s body in a 30-foot well in St Michael to make a call for volunteerism and community responses to societal changes.

“As a society, there are things that we are going to have to start to do to be able to regain control over the behaviour of people in society,” she said. “Things like parental training. You cannot expose the citizenry to a steady diet of violence on television. You expose them to a steady diet of violence on social media, and you have entities that right now have a strong influence over our young people.

“When we were children, it was our homes, it was the church. That was our community. There was a consistent set of values by which we lived so that when we watch television, there is a filter within our minds that says what is acceptable and not acceptable. If children are not getting those values and that training, they cannot make good decisions. And when people have the feeling that they want to get something and they just do whatever they want to get it regardless of how it affects people.”

Highlighting the decline in community involvement, Husbands, who is also Minister of Foreign Trade, also advocated for the restoration of volunteerism, citing a shortage of mentors and role models for youth in activities.

She said: “The first thing we have to do is to restore volunteerism in Barbados. We do not have enough people for Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, clubs, cricket clubs, and football clubs because our lifestyle makes it very busy for us to be able to meet those types of contributions. But if you don’t have the older generation mentoring the younger generation, they will mentor themselves and they will mentor themselves in values that suit how they see and think about life.”

Husbands has also urged the private sector to support community work by allowing individuals time off to mentor youth, emphasising the critical role of positive influences outside the digital sphere in fostering a stronger, sustainable society and economy.

“Give time off to somebody who is going to go to our community to work with our youth,” the MP said. “What is so hard about that? Three hours a week that they can go and give of themselves, because if young people don’t have anything else to look at but what they see on social media and television and what they hear from their peers, we will never grow business that will be able to be strong, have sustainable families and a sustainable economy.” (RG)