Campaign targeting 16,000 students as it tackles violence in schools Loop Jamaica

Black Immigrant Daily News

The Ministry of Education and Youth is looking to target 16,000 students from areas declared Zones of Special Operation (ZOSOs) for behavioural changes with its ‘Just Medz It’ initiative, which is aimed at ending violence in schools.

Speaking at the launch of the campaign at the Douglas Orane Auditorium at Wolmer’s Boys’ School in St Andrew on Wednesday, Minister of Education and Youth Fayval Williams described the campaign as “a national call for action”.

“The campaign is a national call for action for every single Jamaican and organisation to support our effort to engender and sustain a culture of discipline and peace in our homes, our schools and our communities,” Williams said.

Just Medz It is a year-long, multifaceted campaign aimed at addressing the current issue of increasing violence in schools. The programme will seek to equip students with violence prevention strategies to resolve differences.

The initiative will see the improvement of school infrastructure by teaching and incentivising strategies for resolving conflict peacefully, providing psychosocial support to students and parents, utilising the creative arts to maximise school engagement, and introducing character education programmes, among other strategies.

“We have to preserve our schools as safe places for our children,” Williams said.

Education and Youth Minister Fayval Williams (third left) with students from Denham Town, Calabar, and Gainstead High Schools at the launch of the ministry’s violence prevention initiative, ‘Just Medz It’, on October 19, at Wolmers’ Boys’ School in St Andrew. (Photo: JIS)

She said, too, that the ministry would consolidate its human and financial resources to support the programme.

Several government agencies, such as the Safety and Security School Unit, the Guidance and Counselling Unit, the Health and Family Life Education Programme, and the Child Protection and Family Services Agency, will have major roles to play in the Just Medz It initiative.

“We will engage non-government organisations, private sector, community-based organisations, faith-based organisations, to partner with us in our effort to rid violence in the home, in the school, and our communities,” she said.

The minister said that they will be developing a benchmark to track the progress of the initiative.

“We will monitor and evaluate as we go along,” she said.

At the launch, senior parliamentarians Justice Minister Delroy Chuck and Opposition Spokesman Julian Robinson, in whose constituency the programme was launched, endorsed the initiative.

Chuck acknowledged that the level of violence in school has become a very serious problem.

“That is why the Ministry of Justice is working not only with the Ministry of Education in the schools but we are working with the churches and the communities and the home to really stem that cycle of violence,” he said.

Chuck pointed out that his ministry has a number of initiatives aimed at keeping the peace and restoring justice in the schools and the communities.

Julian Robinson told the gathering, which was mostly of students from schools across the Corporate Area, that he supports the initiative because it is heartbreaking what violence does to the family of the victim and the abuser.

“A few weeks ago I faced the mother of Michelle Campbell, the girl who was killed at Kingston Technical, in Bull Bay. I would regard it as the most difficult visit I have had as an MP because I didn’t know what to say to the mother, and when I examined the impact that incident had, it has torn apart two families – the family of the victim and also the family of the perpetrator,” he said.

Robinson said the initiative is long overdue.

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