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Attorney General and Minister of Home Affairs, Adriel Brathwaite, is pictured (second from left) in conversation with Acting Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Social Care, Constituency Empowerment and Community Development, Ruth Blackman (third from right) at last Saturday’s??awards ceremony of the St. Philip South Constituency Council at Crane Beach Resort.

Barbadians, especially members of Constituency Councils, have been urged to make a positive difference in the lives of the young people of this country.

This request has come from Attorney-General and Minister of Home Affairs, Adriel Brathwaite. He was delivering an address last Saturday at an awards ceremony of the St. Philip South Constituency Council at the Crane Beach Resort.

Speaking about the lack of social cohesion and fragmentation in some communities, Mr. Brathwaite advised: "As a country, we need to slow down…We need to get back to basics…I am saddened by the number of young people, both male and female, who I am seeing …and drugs are part of their normal day to day activities… We have to teach them and show them that there is a different way- that there is a better way."

Attorney General and Minister of Home Affairs, Adriel Brathwaite, is pictured presenting Eileen Patricia Agard with her award for Outstanding Work in Education at the St.Philip South Constituency Council’s Awards ceremony last Saturday at Crane Beach Resort.

In light of these disturbing trends and the negative impact of cultural penetration, the Minister of Home Affairs told Council members that there was still a lot of work to be done, if they were to make a difference in the lives of the youth.

"We cannot believe that we only look after our own children and that we can keep them isolated and insolated from what’s happening out there. If we don’t reach out and make a difference to everyone, to as many people as possible, then, as a country, Barbados will be worse off. In fact, we are more challenged today.

"…Today, we can see that we have more Bajan Americans and that everything that comes from the US we want to adopt…Today we can look and see that among our communities there are people that are not just born among us; the community is more diverse in terms of the people who live among us. Therefore, our response has to be different," he stressed.

The Attorney-General sounded a warning that if the Barbadian society continued at its present rate unchecked, and persons continue to adopt foreign cultural trends, this could result in the disintegration of the communities.

??Turning his attention to disaster preparedness, the Home Affairs Minister noted that Tomas had demonstrated that if preparedness was not done on a number of levels; individually, parochially, and collectively, we would survive.

"We need to ensure that we can respond locally… At the Council level, we need to ensure that we can respond quicker than we were able to after Tomas," Mr. Brathwaite underlined.??clashley@barbados.gov.bb

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