Claude Mills, Senior Staff Reporter
( L - R ) PASTOR KELLY AND BISHOP REID
LOCAL CHURCH leaders believe they can wrest power away from dons in depressed communities by forging financial relationships with the private sector that would allow them to 'outgive' dons, and eventually, win the hearts of inner-city residents.
"When you see the roadblocks mounted for them (the dons), when you see the level of violence that people will perpetuate for them, you realise that they have won the hearts. As a Church, we must realise we are at war to win the hearts, that's where we are at," said Pastor Desmond Robinson, incoming head of the Adventist Development Relief Agency (ADRA).
He was speaking during a Gleaner Editors' Forum, at The Gleaner Company's North Street office, central Kingston, on the work of faith-based organisations in ministering to communities.
DON AS THEIR SAVIOUR
"Unless we can win back the hearts of the young 15-year-olds, who see the don as their saviour, unless we can find a way to get back in their hearts they will not be willing to listen to us until they know we care for them," argued Pastor Robinson. "With our resources, business people and churches, we need to get into these communities ... give all the welfare we can on a massive scale."
He said people needed a sense of hope, and that "the don represents that in a false way."
Pastor Robinson added: "He (the don) does not give much, he gives a pittance to the community, and he keeps a pile for himself, the little that he gives, we can beat that. When you catch these dons, you catch them with $18 milion-$20 million in cash.
Other religious leaders also recognised the need to wean communities away from the dons, and to funnel private sector money into social programmes that can fire the imaginations of inner-city residents, and allow other social organisations to become agents of transformation.
"The same amount of money that they (business people) are paying for extortion, if they were to give that money directly to these baby mothers and so on, they would be able to wean them away from these dons... but they are funnelling their money through the wrong channels," charged Dr. Alfred Reid, Bishop of Montego Bay.
In addition to providing material benefit, Pastor Milton Kelly, of the United Pentecostal Church of Jamaica, insisted the church must not abandon the spiritual warfare that must be done in these communities to initiate change.
"There is a dimension to the church which is not often recognised, that is the impact of the spiritual ministry; Christ performed miracles," said Pastor Kelly. "The church can perform miracles...I've seen lives changed as a consequences of people being healed, people being ministered to, and I think this is an area the church should explore."
If it comes to fruition, the church's initiative could prove an essential adjunct to Government's recently announced $200 million Community Support Initiative (CSI) which is to be supported by the United Kingdom. The programme is designed to accompany Kingfish operations against organised crime and to provide social programmes to fill the gap left by deposed dons.
