Claudia Gardner, Gleaner Writer

Miller

WESTERN BUREAU:

Chairman of the Electoral Commission of Jamaica, Professor Emeritus Errol Miller, on Sunday, called for adults to stop branding youths as inferior, urging them to become more supportive.

"If there is any concern that I have with the generation coming, it is not that they are any less than any generation that came before - because they are not," Miller told the audience during a Jamaica Teachers' Association's (JTA) service of appreciation at the St James Parish Church on Sunday.

"I hope that we will stop burdening our young people with this mantle of inferiority we want to put on top of them because they are young. They are as bright and as good as any gene-ration," Miller said.

Take up mantle

He implored youths to understand the sacrifices of their forbears and "take up that mantle ... leave this country a better place than before, because that was what Wesley Hewling did".

Miller delivered the keynote address at a ceremony in honour of JTA past president and first regional officer of the JTA, Wesley Hewling.

Hewling served as JTA president from 1969-1970 and also secretary of Caribbean Union of Teachers. He was the first regional officer of the JTA.

Miller lauded the 90-year-old Hewling as a dedicated, honest and generous community man, who, although born in the days of colonialism, set the pace for the upcoming generations to follow.