Mourning Alpha Boys'

ANYONE WITH a sense of history will, like us, be saddened at the announcement that the Alpha Boys' School will close its residential facility later this year. Happily, however, Alpha Boys' will continue as a day school.

Alpha Boys' has for more than 135 years provided home and shelter for thousands of children who otherwise would have been homeless. Its school offered a decent education for many more. Its music programme was legendary, graduating many of Jamaica's finest musicians. Clearly, the shuttering of the home will mean a closure to an important piece of Jamaica's history.

What is more painful is the reasons for the closure of the home. Not only can the Sisters of Mercy, the Roman Catholic order that operated the home, no longer physically manage, they are overburdened by the antisocial behaviour that they now have to deal with. That is a social crisis that transcends Alpha and a problem for all Jamaicans.

As we tackle that crisis, which we must, the lore and legend of Alpha's better days must not be forgotten.

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