THE EDITOR, Sir:
I WRITE in my capacity as honorary president of the Council of Voluntary Social Services (CVSS) to offer congratulations and thanks to The Gleaner for its 2005 Gleaner Honour Awards made to 'faith-based voluntary organisations'. This places your awards' system on the side of history - past and present.
We need to remember that Norman Washington Manley celebrated the voluntarist principle underlying social organisation and emancipation when he established the Jamaica Welfare Limited. This, lest we forget, was established long before the People's National Party or the Jamaica Labour Party and has remained to this day as the Social Development Commission, as a policy option for whatever administration is in power. But behind all this has been the Council of Voluntary Organisations, a conglomerate of voluntary organisations, a number of which, along with Elsie Sayle (Hon. vice-president), have received your honour award this year.
Voluntarism as a modality for the future to help turn this country around, back to civility, self-reliance and the values which now cry out for restoration, is one which all future administrations of this country will have to engage, adopt, foster and encourage. For it is one way out of the present disarray and crisis which beset the country on all levels, a feature of 21st century life by no means peculiar to Jamaica but still no cause for complacency. It must remain a matter of serious concern among all who are committed to a productive, creative and violence-free future.
Again, our thanks for the acknowledgement and recogni-tion by The Gleaner of what the CVSS and all voluntary organi-sations (faith-based and otherwise) have stood for from the time of colonialism through the movement for self-government right up to Independence and after.
I am, etc.,
REX NETTLEFORD (Prof)
Hon. President, CVSS
