MEMBER OF Parliament for North East Manchester, Audley Shaw, has said that the breakdown in family life in Jamaica in recent years has led to many social dislocations, including an increase in crime and many other forms of anti-social behaviour and rapidly falling standards of personal conduct.
Mr. Shaw was speaking at the launching ceremony for a Family Support Unit established by the Coleyville Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) Church.
He said that Jamaica's future rested on its ability and commitment to reverse the negative trend of declining family values characterised by the absence of a father figure in the household, and often times resulting in a struggling mother that has many children, each for a different father, living with none of the fathers.
"In time past, whether our couples were married or were in common-law relationship, the family unit of commitment of man to woman and their commitment to raising their children was intact. Today, this is a declining phenomenon that is revealing itself in rapidly falling standards among our children and the population in general," Mr. Shaw said.
Mr. Shaw commended Pastor Jerome Gordon and Elder Valda Waker of the Coleyville SDA for their vision in establishing the Family Support Unit and urged the leadership of the SDA Church in Jamaica, to adopt this pilot programme throughout the Seventh-Day Adventist movement, so that "together we can start the process of rescuing our future by restoring family life which is the basic unit of organisation in a civilised and well ordered society."
Guest speaker at the function was Elder Anthony Gordon, who is in charge of Family Life Education in the Central Jamaica Union of Seventh-Day Adventists.
