St Kitts and Nevis: To prevent crime and violence through community engagement in St. Kitts and Nevis, a special initiative has been launched by the Citizen Security Task Force to engage with students across the twin-island federation for proper dissemination of information against crime and violence.
The initiative that was taken up across the schools in the federation, has been named ‘Day of Disruption,’ in which the Citizen Security Task Force will be interacting with the students, informing them about safety, community, and measures against crime and violence.
The initiative has been launched to expand the government’s efforts to combat crime and violence through public engagement. The main focus of the initiative is the prevention of crime through community involvement.
Besides, the experts will also be working to eliminate the root cause of violence by taking into account the available data on crime and prevention in St. Kitts and Nevis.
The initiative was suggested by Prime Minister Dr. Terrance Drew, who also serves as the Minister of National Security and Health. Under the initiative, the Citizen Security Task Force will be conducting various programs for increasing awareness. The initiatives include lectures and workshops across the educational institutions in the Twin Island Federation. This will help young students learn in details about measures that can be taken to bring down crime and violence.
As the first phase of this program, special assemblies were held in educational institutions across the twin-island federation. During these assemblies, students engaged in dialogues with political figures and community leaders to understand the root cause of crime and violence and how to counter this.
The students also used this platform to voice their concerns against crime and violence while understanding how to bring positive change in their local communities.
Co-chair of the Citizen Security Task Force, Senator Isalean Phillip, said that the government had chalked out a detailed program to engage young students in its efforts to prevent crime.
The senator said that to keep crime and violence under check, it was essential to engage the local communities, especially the students, so that long-term changes in the mindset of the people could be achieved.
Earlier, the government of St. Kitts and Nevis had launched a 90-day campaign against crime and violence, which had led to a 19% reduction in overall crimes and a 66% reduction in firearm-related crimes that were reported from across the Twin Island Federation .
Now the latest initiative, ‘Day of Disruption,’ has been launched to further consolidate the efforts of the government in dealing with and preventing crime.
As part of the latest activity in the Day of Disruption initiative, the students participated in various workshops, interactive sessions, and presentations that dealt with various aspects of preventing crime and violence. The topics on which the workshops and sessions were held included conflict resolution and the impact of social media on the mental health of individuals.