Last August when the Government of Anguilla declared Thursday 16 August a day of mourning repentance and prayer and organized a rally against violence in Anguilla, I wanted more than a public relations exercise that would make everyone feel good. I wanted action on recommendations long made in a number of reports. I wanted outreach programmes to get right to the young people who are not attracted to meetings in cold concrete rooms.

I wanted programmes that would enable us to get right to root causes. I wanted a lot. In typical fashion, the fanfare died after a wonderful event that added yet another T-shirt to my wardrobe. However, my own involvement, plus a recent re-read of the 2008 Budget address, indicate that quite a lot of activity is taking place, both within and outside of the public sector, to address Anguilla’s social ills. So what are some of the processes which Anguilla’s partners in social development have undertaken or in which they are currently engaged? What follows will not be a comprehensive report but a snapshot that will help to determine whether we are connecting the dots for the most effective impact possible.

September 2007 - Right on the heels of the August rally, six Anguillians representing Education, Social Development and the Media participated in a UNICEF workshop in Antigua on child protection and responding to child abuse. The month ended with the highly successful National Conference on Youth Development which produced a report and follow-up recommendations including the need to establish a knowledge and information-sharing mechanism within the Ministry of Social Development and develop a communications protocol to facilitate networking and collaboration between key decision-makers as appropriate.

October 2007 – Head of the OECS Secretariat’s Social Policy Unit visited Anguilla to consult with young people and other stakeholders to plan the OECS Youth Initiative.

November 2007 – 3rd Biennial National Development Conference in which perspectives on and from young people were invited. November was also the month when the Anguilla National Youth Council brought stakeholders together again to seek clarification before moving to the development of its Strategic Plan. It was also in November that the Executive Council approved the plan and partnership arrangement for the management of the Blowing Point Youth Development Centre Ltd. This was all in keeping with the Department of Youth and Culture’s strategic objective ‘To engage and support private and public sector entities to provide services for young people’. “According to Director of Youth of Anguilla, Mr Lenox Proctor, the Centre will serve as a focal point for after school learning support, continuing education, and a repository for information on youth health and other issues.”

December 2007 – Three persons representing Education, Social Development and Civil Society participated in the Parenting Partners Caribbean Consultation on Training and Certifying Facilitators of Parenting Education. The Anguilla Representatives developed a country plan for training and certifying facilitators but on return home, the greater interest seemed to be to get directly to Parenting Education. Hopefully, the adoption of professional standards will not be forgotten even if facilitators are trained on the job.

January 2008 – The beginning of the year saw the Anguilla National Youth Council (ANYC) seriously engaged in a process of Strategic Planning.

February 2008 – The Commonwealth Plan of Action for Youth Empowerment (PAYE) 2007-2015, was formally launched in Anguilla.

March 2008 – was an extremely active month which saw the ANYC Draft Strategic Plan completed and disseminated. Further training was organized for the National Youth Ambassador Corps and officers of the Royal Anguilla Police Force received training in Customer Service. This was the month in which the Probation Department initiated its Community Outreach Campaign intended to expand the range of community service options for probationers. March also saw the Police being proactive, stepping up monitoring patrols to prevent violent gang clashes about which they had received community intelligence. This is an example of the positive outcomes of communities partnering with the police.

April 2008 – Six young persons including the present CARICOM Youth Ambassadors and Commonwealth Regional Youth Caucus Representative began training geared towards providing the foundation, knowledge and skills needed to function effectively as members of the National Youth Ambassadors Corps (NYAC). The NYAC is a means of creating a structured opportunity for leadership training and to “systematically integrate a youth perspective at all levels of decision making.”

May 2008 – This was the month when Jaine Rogers sang with other divas at Radio City Music Hall. May 14 to June 18th was the duration of a Distance Education Training of Trainers course in facilitating Parenting Education. The course was provided by the Parenting Partners Caribbean and facilitated by UWIDITE system at the University of the West Indies School of Continuing Education. The TOT trainees were Susan Smith (Early Childhood Education), Sonia Skellekie (Social Development) and Ijahnya Christian (Non-Formal Community Education), who had attended the consultation in Antigua six months earlier. The training practicum for the course was done with a small group of parents at Island Harbour Primary School. May 2008 also saw the major milestone of the Anguilla Tennis Academy opening its doors. Supported by the Chief Minister’s Office, the ANYC and Kool FM radio station, the National Youth Ambassadors organized an educational session for youth on the process of Constitutional Reform. The Valley Community Initiative also began in May.

June 2008 – Here we are, looking forward to reports on the success of the Father and Son Retreat organized by the Department of Social Development (DSD) which, early in July, will bring together stakeholders to advance the Child Protection Action Plan. At Triple Crown Culture Yard, planning for the Stingray Supporting Young Parents Programme continues apace.

As we approach the first anniversary of last August’s call for action to take Anguilla back, I hope we will pause to review the commitments made at the Landsome Bowl and to measure the extent to which we have engaged as a community to honour them. I still want a lot. I want to see the word culture appearing with the same frequency as I see the word sports and I want to see investment in state of the art infrastructure to facilitate excellence in the arts. If the police blotter is a yardstick, the strategy must pull all this action together to result in at least the targeted and consistent reduction of violent crime. I think we are showing the will and will therefore find the way.

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