PRIME?MINISTER Freundel Stuart is concerned that too many young people are falling victim to the ravages of drugs.
He voiced this concern at the inaugural awards dinner of the St James Central branch of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) at Bagatelle Great House in St Thomas, Friday night.
“I do not think that we have reached crisis point in this area,” the Prime Minister said.
“I do not think that we are at the stage where we have to be in any state of uncontrolled alarm, but because we live in an environment where money plays so central a role, there is a tendency for persons who are interested in making money to lose sight of the fact that in their pursuit of moneymaking, they can ruin lives of very innocent people.”
Stuart reiterated that Barbados was not just an economy, but also a society.
“When you get down to it, we are much more and worth much more than what we own. We are much more and worth much more than what we earn. We are much more and worth much more than what we produce.
“We are much more than an economy. We are a society and as a society we have to be interested in the welfare of each other,” he said.
Stuart told the eight community awardees he was concerned that too many families were losing young men to crime, adding that teachers now played a bigger role than ever in shaping the lives of children.
“I have always contended that the most receptive, productive and active hours of a child’s life are spent under the influence of teachers. When children get up on morning, they hurry to get to school and when they return home on evenings, it is to do homework and then to go bed so they can up early to go to school.
“There are challenges in some of our schools but a lot of those challenges really have to do with the weakness in our homes. It is evident that too many of our homes in Barbados in the year 2011, are weaker than homes were in the 1950s and 1960s.
“There is too much of a breakdown in discipline and as a result, our children are left too much on their own and when they go to school, teachers are faced with too many intractable problems.”
Stuart said there was a tendency to count the curses rather than to accentuate the blessings.
“When we count our curses and give the impression that nothing right is happening in the country, we lose sight of how many good things are happening that distort our perspectives and we then we begin to live in a world of unreality.”
The Prime Minister quoted Greek mathematician and inventor Archimedes: “Give me a rock on which to stand and I will shake the earth.
“We intend to give every man, woman and child in Barbados a rock on which to stand so that they can shake the Barbadian earth. George Hutson [DLP MP St James Central] is part of that effort, that is why we embrace him and we are in no doubt about his conviction in respect of the cause which we are pursuing,” Stuart said. (MK)
