Damion Mitchell, News Coordinator - Radio

Thirteen-year-old Trinidadian Chocílate Allen has a message for Jamaican youths. "We have the power to be successful in anything as long as it's positive!"

Today and tomorrow, she will continue to spread this message during her 12-hour-a-day fasting and reading for peace and purity at the Kingston and St. Andrew Parish Library. It all began at 6:00 a.m. yesterday and already, there has been an overwhelming response to what Chocílate calls her 100 per cent crime-free initiative.

"A lot of times as youths, what we may hear especially from adults are negative things - we don't have self respect, we donít have discipline we don't have a sense of direction, however my motive is to tell the youths what we have. We have the power of making the right choices! We have the power of accepting responsibility for our action! We have the power of doing anything!" she said.

But the 13-year-old home-schooled girl said adults must also acknowledge their responsibility to their children. She also said she is deeply disturbed by reports of neglect of children and crime and violence across the region, but Chocílate will continue to do her best to fight against this in a gentle way.

"We will read," she said. "With reading comes about knowledge. So, let's read to inspire ourselves."

Already, Chocílate has fasted for peace and purity for five days in her home town of Port-of-Spain and she plans to go to other regional territories. So committed is she to the initiative that Chocílate has postponed her Caribbean Secondary Certificate Examations this year to allow her enough time to visit countries of the region to fast and read for peace and purity.

Chocílate is the executive director of Caribbean Vizion, a five-year-old non-profit organisation with executive members in several regional countries.