National Peace Programme’s director says anti-violence initiative working

he National Peace Programme’s administrators have insisted there’s been a substantial improvement in overall stability across communities as the government initiative to stem violent crime observes its first anniversary.

So far, more than 1 000 young men and women have passed through the programme which has empowered them to be more positive and productive citizens,  Alison Roach Plummer, the programme’s director, revealed on Monday.

Authorities have touted the NPP as an essential tool for preventing and reducing crime in the short, medium and long term. It includes various activities for strategic prevention of crime in the short term and self-development, training and opportunities for the medium to long term.

“Over 1 200 young people have been engaged already in the National Peace Programme, both male and female. The atmosphere has changed,” Roach Plummer told Barbados TODAY.

“When have you had an incident,” she asked, “where you had young people in one space in the last few months coming together and the police had to bring in the strong hand of the law? When was the last time you saw that at any cricket or any football or any event that they had lately? You have not.”

She also reported that residents in communities who in the past feared for their lives and therefore refused to leave their homes are now getting involved in the peace efforts.

“Community engagement has picked up significantly from before,” Roach Plummer said. “In the past when there was all of the shootings and the violence, people were not keen to come out of their houses. We didn’t have young people who were engaged in wholesome, meaningful engagements. They were no longer coming out to see family members. A lot of things were buttoned down.

“But, we would have started having hands-on within weeks of commencing something we called Flip the Script in which we had engaged over 180 young persons to come together, that might have never met each other from before. We narrowed it done to 90 with aftercare, an eight to 10-week programme, where we had persons between the ages of nine right up to 20-something coming together in a room.”

The NPP director said the participants were exposed to skills that included life coaching, mediation and anger management.

She summarised the gamut of offerings as basic skills that would allow the young people to navigate being in the company of strangers: “From there, we went to other programmes which saw persons coming out of their shells to do something like a barbering programme, a bar tendering programme, learning how to make craft. We had a sporting initiative as well, which brought communities together that were not together for years, didn’t cross over for years.”

The official explained that throughout the whole process, there was no violence or incitement to violence. “People were coming out for the purpose of peace,” she declared.

Roach Plummer said that while working with young people over the past year, she found that most of them do not want to live a life of having to be running and hiding for their lives.

She stressed that while some did not drop their guard during the initial peace process, they seemed to feel more comfortable as the programme moved forward.

“They felt they were living in a society where the purpose was peace. People have been coming, have been asking how can they help to be a part of it. The NGOs, the stakeholders, the partners; everybody have joined together with one purpose in mind, and that is the purpose of peace,” the peacemaker declared.

Roach Plummer said the NPP has also allowed the team to discover that the young people with whom they interacted have been asking for the opportunity to get wealthy, to work, and for people to see them in a positive light.

“The young people are asking us to give them an opportunity to see them do better. There are only one of two that are really, really wayward, but when you get the opportunity to be with them, they talk about things that bothering them, things they want to see better, the family unit, their friends…they don’t want to end up like somebody they knew that got killed by the gun.”

She noted that when the youth are told to put down the gun, they are asking for a more meaningful replacement, such as skills training that would equip them for employment.

Roach Plummer said the programme was moving into the future, pointing to two life-changing initiatives – one to empower vulnerable youth and the other to help parents strengthen their parenting skills.

Elevate the Peace and the Parent-Wise Community Project were launched last month at Sandals Royal where minister for crime prevention Corey Lane emphasised the valuable role they will play in assisting the targeted groups.

emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb