Damion laments poverty, hunger, erosion of values

St Catherine North Western Member of Parliament Damion Crawford says Jamaica has become a “strange land” where poverty, hunger, violence and the erosion of community values are increasingly being accepted as normal.

Crawford delivered the stinging assessment on Sunday as he addressed the public session of the People’s National Party’s (PNP) 88th Annual Conference at Independence Park in Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland.

“They can’t get lunch,” declared Crawford, the spokesman on education, describing the experience of needy children who get school meals.

He said the situation was particularly painful for children who have to endure embarrassment while waiting for basic food.

“They have to go into a line of segregation for the children of the poor to face embarrassment because they’re waiting on rice and gravy, with the hope that a piece of chicken foot escape,” he said.

Collective responsibility

Crawford said he was not accustomed to a Jamaica in which children are exposed to gambling, promiscuity, alcohol and abuse, while communities appear increasingly disconnected from the suffering of others.

He also raised concerns about teenage pregnancy and child hunger, citing figures of more than 100,000 children going to school hungry.

Crawford said the country must recover the spirit of collective responsibility embodied in the old saying that “the village raised the child”.

He argued that the issues affecting the country should transcend party politics and called for the PNP to build what he described as a “coalition of conscience”.

Crawford said Jamaicans, regardless of their background or political persuasion, should be able to agree that hungry children deserve food, sick people deserve healthcare, and academically successful young people deserve opportunities to pursue tertiary education.

“We must open the party and welcome all those that are willing and all those that are able to join us ... ,” he said.

And despite the political battles and criticism facing the party, Crawford ended with an emphatic declaration of loyalty.

“I am PNP now, PNP then, and PNP forever, Comrades,” he said.

albert.ferguson@gleanerjm.com