The Editor, Sir:

Let me congratulate The Gleaner Company for its continuous involvement with assisting Jamaica's youth and the males in particular to become better persons.

The conferences that you have sponsored on male issues have been a step in the right direction.

Jamaican men, most of them, at least, find the pursuit of money to be far more engaging and satisfying than spending time to understand themselves and how to treat with and relate to their sons.

Male-male relationships, even among fathers and sons, are not a priority for most men in our culture and they don't know how to do it successfully.

The homophobia in the society certainly doesn't help, either, as most men prefer to relate to another man solely in the context of work or some other activity like sports.

Not comfortable

It makes you wonder as to how many of our men are really comfortable with their roles as fathers and their sexual identity as males.

If our men are not sufficiently comfortable with their sexual identity to relate in healthy ways to other males, then who are going to be the male mentors for our boys and young men?

You can't ask the women to mentor them as there are limits to what our women can provide for our boys and young men in helping them to become mature men. To become a man (a mature man), our boys and younger males need proper and responsible adult male role models.

A second issue is that because men, in general, find material and financial pursuit to be their manly calling, that quest often pits them against family and other social responsibilities.

The need for sacrifice becomes an issue here and so arises a very crucial question: How many of our men are willing to sacrifice for the good of their children and family?

This question goes to the heart of the matter. Further, how many of us are willing to sacrifice personal goals and ambitions to help with mentoring and coaching some young men and boys to become better persons?

Without that commitment to personal sacrifice on the part of our men, no amount of convocations or conferences will substitute for making better men and men better in Jamaica.

I am, etc.,

Rev COURTNEY RICHARDS

dr1957@gmail.com

International director, Renewed Ministries