Deputy Headboy Attends First Ever Caribbean Child Research Conference
Mr. Bertrand Banviel, head of UNICEF in Jamaica; Brandon Allgood and Sir Alister McIntyre, Vice Chancellor Emeritus of the UWI
Brandon Allwood, KC deputy headboy and advocate of the Jamaica Coalition on the Rights of the Child, attended and delivered a stirring speech at yet another conference.
The Conference was the first ever Caribbean Child Research Conference. It was held over two days, October 25-26, at the Pegasus Hotel in Kingston under the theme ‘”Promoting Child Rights Through Research” and sought to disseminate findings of contemporary research in order to improve the awareness of the current situation of children in the Caribbean, as well as encourage further research which would inform on further programming and planning of intervention to benefit children.
Allwood, who only recently stirred controversy in an editorial in the Observer TEENage column by calling for sex education and introduction of its protective measures in schools, told the gathering that the youths were an integral part of nation building and therefore should be involved in the process:
"We should be involved in the planning, meeting and discussion
because we are not just the future, but we are the now. / Children think the existence of child rights is a fallacy because they do not feel it at home and they do not feel it at school."
Sir Alister McIntyre, Vice Chancellor Emeritus at the University of the West Indies, had earlier delivered the key note address. He called for more emphasis to be placed on assisting disadvantaged children in the region and for Governments to undertake a comprehensive reform of the development process of children in an effort to significantly reduce the current levels of crime, violence and abuse. He called on Caribbean governments to put child development in the area of education, improved nutrition and poverty alleviation at the pinnacle of national and regional policy agenda.
Similar sentiments were echoed by Bertram Bainvel, UNICEF representative to Jamaica when he called on the region’s political leaders to anchor their vision for national development into a national framework for children informed by data and financed by serious resources proportionate to its goals.
This is the second Child Rights Conference attended by Allwood over the pass two months. He only recently returned to the island from a UN sponsored conference in Geneva, Switzerland.
