Basseterre, St. Kitts, May 23, 2018 (SKNIS): The Department of Social Services and Community Development has embarked on an initiative to recognize twenty-five (25) mothers and fathers around St. Kitts and Nevis for their hard work and dedication to the development of families and communities.
This was echoed on the Government’s weekly radio and television programme “Working for You” on Tuesday, May 23, when Community Development Officer, Delroy Prentice, appeared on the show to update the general public on the many plans and programmes the Department of Community Development has in place to achieve its objectives of community building.
“We are going to be honouring 25 mothers and fathers around the island. Now they don’t have to be biological mothers or fathers. It can be a community mother; it can be the lady down the road who everybody says is the community mother; or the guy in the community who doesn’t have a child but he’s there in schools teaching everybody’s child,” said the community development officer.
He added that an important aspect of the initiative is to interact with the families so as to get a better understanding of who they are.
“We are going to be doing interviews with them as well because we want to learn from them like – what can you pass on to persons? What do you do that we recognize and you want more people to do as well?” he said.
This initiative forms part of the month of activities for International Family Month, which runs from May 13 – June 17 as a means of bringing families and communities closer together.
Another important initiative that was implemented to bring families and communities closer was the inclusion of a movie night.
“We have our annual movie night. What we do is that we partner with community groups, churches, schools, individuals, to host movie night where families can come out – moms, dads, grandparents, family friends – everybody can come out… just basically keeping that family vibes that we need inside the island,” said Mr. Prentice.
He explained that a lot of family bonding is needed in St. Kitts and Nevis, hence the reason why the ministry is partnering with families and communities to ensure that such is realized. The community development officer further added that the ministry is doing a lot to engage communities and families on a whole and encouraged persons to reach out so as to not miss out on all the interactive and educational plans and programmes that are currently in place.