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Last Updated: Feb 13, 2017 - 1:45:37 AM |
As the Member of Parliament for the Nassau Village constituency, I remain committed to addressing the challenge of crime and poverty in my constituency. That is why in my capacity as the Member of Parliament I am announcing a new initiative to demonstrate we can transform problematic neighborhoods into safe, supportive, productive surroundings for children, youth and families.
Poverty is a concern that can no longer be ignored. Poverty is a cancer that infects every corner of the community. In such neighborhoods, I've realized that treating a few symptoms wasn't sufficient: We have to heal that entire community. It’s time to change the odds for neighborhoods all across the Bahamas. If you lived within Nassau Village and most Bahamians did -- then you would have a comprehensive understanding of the challenges of marginalization. It is the sizable population and demographics of my constituency’s young men and women who have been locked out of what I believe is the essential apparatus of social mobility: that ensures and guarantees a decent education, health care resources, job opportunities, and safe neighborhoods. The reality of compacted poverty and lack of reachable opportunities and the disaffection of young Bahamians that goes along with these absences represent one of the most daunting social problems that community face.
Rebuilding Nassau Village Initiative (RNV) is our first long-term investment to improve the well-being of my constituents. The initiative will work in conjunction with community-based organizations to continue our formation a comprehensive strategy to reverse and eradicate social isolation and disinvestment in low-income neighborhoods. This initiative is dedicated to helping build better futures for disadvantaged children in Nassau Village. The key components of the initiative that I will be announcing today are:
·The primary focus of this initiative will foster public policies, programs, human-service reforms with a designed focus, and community supports that more effectively meet the needs of the constituency’s most challenged as well as vulnerable children and families. To achieve our goals, the initiative will leverage both private sector and government support so that the constituency is able to fashion a more innovative, cost-effective responses to our needs.
·We will utilize all of our resources to effectively forge collaborations with educational institutions, private sector agencies, policymakers, and community leaders so we can work together maximizing our efforts to transform the country’s toughest places to raise families. Throughout the initiative, we will examine previous and future research, seek the necessary technical assistance, and demonstrate our abilities that help service and support systems like public schools, juvenile justice/rehabilitation agencies, and child welfare systems to yield better results for kids and families in our constituency. We will directly engage our human capital, identify and implement measures what works, and share lessons learned with government officials to demonstrate our willingness to advocate the potential of reforming public policies and services on behalf of children and their families in the Nassau Village constituency.
·We will outline and ensure services that will be efficient interventions for children and their families, and help to adequately prepare at-risk youth to become successful adults. All of these services will be driven by a shared goal of securing and supporting our constituency’s lifelong family connections for all children and youth. Systems of educational, social, and economic reform will be a signature investment area and a major emphasis of our work. Our constituency will demonstrate our abilities, replicate, and profoundly advocate for the implementation of changes to public services and systems that do a better job of providing effective, efficient assistance to the children and families they were designed to support.
·We will ensure our collective efforts to make lasting and meaningful reforms in public services throughout the constituency, this initiative provide will prudent, strategic management support to administrators of public systems who are working to create fundamental change. The key of this initiative is being able to demonstrate that improving the quality of the community in areas in which our most vulnerable children and families live can make, meaningful, measurable and sustained improvements in their ability to survive, thrive, and contribute a Stronger Bahamas. We will work collaboratively together as a constituency to properly advance the proposition that improving future opportunities for disadvantaged children necessitates helping parents in our constituency to secure the resources, connections, and skills they need to support, nurture, and provide for them today.
·Along with government agencies and the private sector, we will gather and promote the use of data as an essential tool for the change needed. Our standard procedure will guide us in seeking and supporting an independent evaluation of our initiatives and strategies to ensure that our direct and non-direct investments are yielding real results. In the preliminary implantation of this strategy, we will promote understanding, build support for this initiative and share data around issues of income disparity and achievement gaps in low-income areas of the constituency. We will focus our aim on addressing the challenges of every single individual to ensure that all children, regardless of age, race, culture, national origin, sexual orientation, special needs are met or complex circumstances resolved.
·We will maximize our interest and investment in building better futures for disadvantaged children in tough Nassau Village neighborhoods -- areas where poverty is predominately concentrated, crime is recurrent, safety is difficult to find, and essential public services are unreliable. I join in the shared belief that improving the lives of disadvantaged children in our constituency requires a combination of effective strategies designed to strengthen families and neighborhoods. Being able to secure families economic security will be an important part of our approach.
·We will strongly advocate for educational investments that will be directed to public schools near our constituency-- for improving opportunities for children and families, particularly those living in tough neighborhoods close to their proximity. This initiative will make third-grade reading achievement a priority as well as an important element of building for the future of Nassau Village.
·We will advocate for broad changes to be made for juvenile reforms that focus on improving the odds so that delinquent youth can be empowered to make successful transitions to adulthood, the priority is being able to identify ways to minimize the amount of young people being arrested, and rely more on proven, family-focused interventions, and create opportunities for positive sustainable youth development.
·The reduction of unplanned and unwanted pregnancies. Encouraging younger women to use effective forms of contraceptive method and educating them about the availability, convenience, safety, and effectiveness of these contraceptive devices is a strategic approach in reducing the amount of less advantage females having children as a result of unplanned pregnancies. The policy solution must be engaging in a mass media campaign that brings necessary awareness of the social and economic cost associated with unintended pregnancies. There must be the development of teen pregnancy prevention programs targeted on at-risk teens
·We will use the expansion of Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, to ensure the public safety of the constituents in the Nassau Village.
·We will introduce the Hire Just One Program with a simple goal of putting people back to work. If profitable small to large size businesses of our country were to hire just one employee, which would take people out of our constituency off the unemployment lines and get them back to work. Think of the ripple effect it would have on our community. Youth unemployment and the lack of job creation is a problem for social mobility in our constituency. Unemployment among young people is concentrated, highly among the most disadvantaged population. We will work to strengthen the collaboration and connection between local education institutions and the local employment market to improve job prospects. We will work along with the government to strengthen their financial commitment to existing programs that reconnect young adults with education and employment opportunities. We will work on the creation of public-private partnership that will benefit young unemployed youth in our constituency, and expand mentoring programs. There must be a cohesive approach in our attempts to align young people with the necessary skills required to develop and diversify our economy.
·We will introduce tailored mentoring programs, working with females as a school and community-based counseling, focused on mentoring, creating character development and educational enrichment programs which will promote sustainable social, emotional and behavioral competencies in at-risk young females in our constituency in the 7th through 12th grades. We will keenly target young females who are categorized with significant risk factors for dropout or delinquency, such as: teenage pregnancy, trauma, loss, drugs and/or alcohol abuse, self-harm, gang involvement, aggression, academic under-performance, fighting, and discipline referrals. We will ensure that the program what will be developed achieve its objective of motivating students to stay on track to graduate high school, develop the necessary skills and abilities needed to make positive choices in their lives and develop the required resilience assets such as self-efficacy, anger management and positive values that enable them to become self-sufficient adults who can positively impact to the constituency of Nassau Village.
·We will introduce tailored mentoring programs, working with males in Nassau Village as a dropout and violence prevention program for the category of at-risk male students in grades 7-12. The primary objective of the program will be offered in-school and in the community, in many cases the program will be supported and complemented by after-school sports, to develop a matured sense of social-cognitive skills strongly correlated with reductions in violent and anti-social behavior. Each designed session will be built around a lesson based approach designed to develop a specific skill through stories, role-playing and group exercises. Participants enrolled in this program will learn about and practice impulse control, emotional self-regulation, reading social cues and interpreting the intentions of others, raising aspirations for the future and developing a sense of personal responsibility and integrity. The after-school sports component will reinforce conflict resolution skills and the social and emotional learning objectives of the in-school curriculum.
·As a part of this initiative, we will launch an After School Community Center, which will give children and teens opportunities to explore and develop their talents, while gaining critical skills for work, college and beyond. We will track each Child in the Nassau Village constituency in the program to improve academic performance, school attendance, and graduation probability. The Community Center will also improve the College Enrollment chances of the students in our constituency.
·As a constituency, we have to admit that Single-Parent Families are the emergence of a social problem. Regardless of how family diversity is viewed, the increase in and prevalence of families headed by one parent has a major influence on the social, economic, and political context of family life. Single mothers or fathers’ economic vulnerability is also hugely impacted by the fact that they are their children’s sole caretakers. The Bahamas are challenged by the economic and social consequences of absent parents. It’s imperative that we make the family work again and we teach men to be better fathers. This is initiative will focus on measures to improve the state of parenthood in our constituency. The importance of addressing the stubborn problems of economic inequality and immobility facing single-parent families is becoming one of the nation’s most vexing social issues. The statistic from this issue is problematic and indicates an intensifying disadvantage for these families and their children. A trajectory changing intervention must articulate the creation of stable home environments for the development of children. It's imperative that we maintain and even strengthen existing safety nets for single parent homes. We should create a culture where children live with both biological parents in order to provide a stable environment producing healthy relationships. Implement marriage and fatherhood programs to promote child well-being.
I will like to re-emphasize my previous statements - Nassau Village will not be a safe haven for criminals at the expense of my constituent’s safety. I will make it clear that our constituency will not be a playground for your war. This is our challenge as a community. As a Member of Parliament, I do not pretend to have all of the answers, but I do believe is that solution though starts with each member of our constituency. I urge our community leaders to stop talking past each other and join together as a country for solutions. The young people in my constituency that we are losing every day cannot wait for an endless political debate to be determined. Now is not the time for a who is at fault debate. Now is the time for a solution driven debate.
I would like to acknowledge Latrae Rahming and other individuals involved in the process for their leadership and contribution in formulating these strategies, initiatives, and programs. I challenge my Parliamentary colleagues on both sides to adopt this model to their constituencies which may endure the unique circumstance like Nassau Village to enhance our efforts in creating a stronger Bahamas. I want my constituents to understand that I will do everything to ensure that we respond to violence and poverty with the best our community has to offer through strength, love, and unity. Understanding that we are in this together.
I dream of a new Nassau Village where crime, violence, and poverty, no longer hinder the flowering of the children in my constituency. I dream of a new Nassau Village where businesses can be successful without the fear of being a victim of crime , where women can walk freely without having to look over their shoulders, where a grandfather can watch his grandchildren play safely together without the fear of the being victim of senseless violence.
Meaningful change will present an opportunity to happen when thousands of Bahamians, locally in their respective communities, neighborhood by neighborhood, island by island, organize in a shared voice saying enough is enough as we continue in our efforts of building stronger communities, stronger families, and a stronger Bahamas.
The Hon. Dion Smith MP
Member of Parliament of Nassau Village
Deputy Speaker of the House
Executive Chairman of the Bahamas Agricultural Industrial Corporation
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