Western Ja–based religious leaders pin hopes of a good new year on COVID vaccines
In Jamaica, hundreds of people, particularly in the tourism sector, have lost their jobs, while many have taken salary cuts.
But with the development, and the administering of vaccines, many are hopeful that the coming year will see improvements in economies worldwide.
Reverend Canon Hartley Perrin of the Westmoreland St Peter’s Anglican Church argues that the availability of the vaccines will make a significant difference in the coming year.
“And even though we in Jamaica may not be able to afford... have access immediately to the vaccines, the fact that our neighbours and our friends who would normally visit us would have access, the chances of curtailment [of the coronavirus] is much greater,” the man of the cloth stated.
“So if we are looking in terms of the COVID-19, notwithstanding the fact that it is mutating into something else, but if we were to stop it in its tracks, then it can’t mutate anymore because it no longer exists. So, if it is that we are looking at that as one of the greatest monsters that we have seen in this 21st century, then I think we are getting better days to come. So, it is my fervent hope that 2021 is going to be a brighter and better year than 2020.”
Prolific preacher and president of the West Jamaica Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Pastor Glen Samuels, expressed similar sentiments.
“I guess everybody in Jamaica and around the world would be hoping for a COVIDFREE year, at least for the most part. I think that there is great hope on this vaccine and I for one hope that it will bring about a change in the unfortunate issues as it relates to the impact of the virus because it has been creating quite a havoc on not only the health workers, old people, but the entire economy of the rich, the poor, the vulnerable, and mostly the vulnerable. And so, I would hope that there will be a change in their circumstances,” Pastor Samuels stated.
“I am hoping that for the most part it [coronavirus pandemic] will increase our understanding that we cannot depend on human wisdom to survive as a people ...that there is a place for the living God in the life of the nation, in the life of every individual.”
Reverend Father James Saturday of the St Joseph Catholic Church in Falmouth, who was also hopeful that “better days are coming”, is grateful that scientists have made a breakthrough in the development of the COVID vaccine
“Next year is going to be a year that will bring tremendous consolation to the people who have been so much shaken in the context of COVID-19. So the vaccination is a great step for hope and to look at the next year, a year that will be colourful, so much brighter than this year. So, I am so hopeful and praying that God’s people will find consolation next year. This year has been so much of a trouble with COVID-19,” the Catholic priest said.
“As we enter into next year I am glad that God has been so good to us and has taken us through this year and we will enter 2021 in God’s power, but also in the power of the vaccine that the scientists have worked so hard in this year to find.”
As part of efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19, the Government, earlier this year, introduced a raft of measures including the Disaster Risk Management Act.
Under that Act, individuals who refuse to follow the established orders and protocols, including curfews and stayat-home orders, can be fined up to $1 million or six months imprisonment.
But Reverend Revern Grant of the Calvary Gospel Assembly Church in Hanover is hoping that the Government impose harsher penalties in the coming year, arguing that if people adhere to the protocols set out by the Government and the Ministry of Health and Wellness, there will be no need for the vaccine.
“The Government has to do something more and I expect them to do something more,” stated the minister of religion.
“We as a people, if we adhere to protocols then the vaccine would not just throw on us like that, but then nobody wants to stay in. Everybody wants to be up and down having a merry time and then the virus is spreading. So, if the virus is spreading and if the vaccine per se is the answer to the virus and we are saying we are not going to take it, then we are in trouble because we are the ones who are spreading the virus,” Rev Grant argued.
Canon Perin, who expressed hope for the resumption of face -to-face classes, lamented the woes of the outgoing year.
“I am also hoping that if we can get COVID where it ought to be that we see face-to-face school reopen so the children can be back because down the line we are going to face problems in believing that by giving tablets and access to the Internet we are going to solve the problem. No. We will need more than that. We want socialisation, we want the kids to learn how to behave with each other, we want teachers to interface with them and put them on track, so schools need to be reopened,” he charged.
“But this year 2020 has really been remarkable. A Magnitude 7 earthquake, Sahara dust, hurricane that kept south of us but had enough effect to have caused so much damage in St Thomas and other places and then COVID-19. Wow! Not to mention that the murder figures are still alarming and I don’t know how we are going to curtail it because the security forces are stretched, and it would appear that it is going to still plague us in 2021. So, too, the matter of collisions on the road, discipline needs to be enforced.”
Like his counterparts who expressed that above all God is the greatest hope for the people, Pastor Samuels argued that there must now be a greater partnership between the Government and the Church in the new year.
“I hope that as a nation our leaders and our technocrats who plan will look at ways of expanding our economic resilience; will look at the most vulnerable in our society and find new ways of partnering with the Church. Our Government and the governments around the world must understand that the Church plays a vital role in our society and when I say church, I am not speaking merely of the Adventist church, I am speaking of the Christian community… Adventists, Baptist, Catholics, Anglicans, all of us together,” the outspoken Pastor Samuels said.
“And so I trust that 2021 will reveal new ways that we can do stuff and provide, for the most part, relief from this dreaded virus. I really hope we will find an answer and not just to the virus, but an answer to us as a people to become a kinder and gentler society.”
“One of my greatest wishes for the new year is that we will become a kinder, gentler, more caring society.”
“I am hoping that, for the most part, it [pandemic] will increase our understanding that we cannot depend on human wisdom to survive as a people. That there is a place for the living God in the life of the nation, in the life of every individual.”
MCAMBRIDGE, St James ember of Parliament for St James Southern Homer Davis has given his commitment to the Community Training for Empowerment Programme (CTEP), conceptualised by his predecessor, Derrick Kellier, 16 years ago.
He stressed that he is fully in favour of any programme that is designed for human development.
“I don’t have a problem with things that involve human development. I am for empowering people, especially with a lifelong skill. If it has a benefit to the community and a benefit to individuals, then personally I don’t have a problem with that,” said Davis, who is also state minister in the ministry of local government, during a telephone interview with the Jamaica Observer West.
Kellier, a former People’s National Party (PNP) Cabinet member, who was a seven-time Member of Parliament for St James Southern, did not seek re-election during the September 3 General Election.
In that parliamentary election, Davis, who represented the ruling Jamaica Labour Party, polled 7,223 votes to beat first-time candidate Dr Walton Small, who replaced Kellier by almost 2,000 votes.
During last year’s CTEP graduation exercise, Kellier indicated that despite his imminent departure from representational politics, CTEP would not end after he throws in the towel.
And speaking at the recent graduation ceremony in Cambridge, Kellier charged the graduates to introduce the training programme to unskilled individuals.
“We have trained and certified over 2,000 youngsters some of them are not even from the constituency here because people have seen the light and have come from Westmoreland, Hanover and all over to be a part of this. So, I am challenging you to continue to make your light shine. Shine your light as your contribution,” the former parliamentarian argued.
The Community Training for Empowerment Programme (CTEP) is in partnership with HEART TRUST/NSTA National Unattached Youth Programme (NUYP). This programme provides training and certification for unskilled constituents in St James Southern and surrounding areas.
Despite the coronavirus pandemic, 75 trainees completed the programme in security operations, food and beverage services (bartending), housekeeping (linen room attendant), cake baking and decorating, general agriculture, and general beauty therapy.
Training was conducted at the CTEP Cambridge and Mocho campuses.
CTEP has been collaborating with HEART TRUST/NSTA for the past 16 years, and has been collaborating with the NUYP over the past two years.
In keeping with COVID protocols, at last week’s graduation ceremony seven groups were accommodated inside the Cambridge Community Centre at seven different times in order to maintain social distancing, the CTEP coordinator Claudette Glegg told the Observer West.
“Due to the COVID pandemic we have had to do the
graduation in a COVID red carpet style,” Glegg stressed.
She noted that the pandemic also resulted in the extension of the last term.
“This programme should have ended in June, but we were out of school for two months hence we had to stagger the trainees... we ended up completed at this time. COVID has actually changed the landscape of a lot of things. We have never had a red carpet graduation over the 16 years, so COVID has changed this,” outlined the long-standing CTEP coordinator.
“We will start over in January. There are already 60-odd trainees who have indicated their interest to come back to the programme. So
CTEP and HEART Trust are still alive and well in Cambridge and I am hoping Mocho could give us the numbers for us to go back next time. So you trainees who are the ambassadors of the training should encourage others.”
Over the years, scores of CTEP graduates have found employment at hotels, both locally and internationally.