Jamaica’s Ministry of Education and Youth (MoEY) and the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNLIREC) are collaborating to strengthen measures to tackle the presence of firearms in schools and youth-related violence in general.
During a recent seminar organised by the MoEY’s Safety and Security in Schools’ Unit, UNLIREC and the Planning Institute of Jamaica, participants including representatives of UN agencies, civil society members and youth representatives noted the challenges of youth-related armed violence, inside and outside of school campuses as well as measures being implemented to address the problem. They also highlighted the need for the education and security sectors to provide coordinated responses and comprehensive solutions to ensure the well-being of communities, given that violence affects almost all aspects of life in society.
The discussions focused on preventive approaches across Latin America and Caribbean. While Jamaica has not had many incidents involving the use of firearms in schools, it is seen as crucial for stakeholders to work together from a prevention angle. “Prevention is better than cure” was a key sentence repeated throughout the seminar by participants and panellists.
“Firearm-related and other types of violence is an unfortunate reality of our society that often spills over onto school campuses. Violence by and among students in schools and elsewhere often result from many contributing factors including community disputes, dysfunctional family relations, maladaptive behaviours by students and sometimes the easy access to weapons. We need to address the elements that put children at risk, including access to firearms. We need to create a positive and inclusive school environment assisting students to build upon their strengths,” said Mrs. Fayval Williams, Minister of Education and Youth in her remarks.
Mrs. Soledad Urruela, UNLIREC’s Director stated in her remarks that “The mere presence of a firearm in a school setting – for whatever reason – is a transgression and an affront to everything schools represent. Weapons have no place in spaces that exist for peaceful coexistence, socializing and most of all for learning, in which girls, boys, and adolescents are taught to be good citizens and where indispensable core values are transmitted. We must all work toward preventing this scourge through an inclusive, whole of society approach. We must all do our duty to guarantee safe schools for a just, peaceful and sustainable future for our children and societies”.
During the Seminar, UNLIREC officially launched the Guidelines for the Development of Protocols to Tackle the Presence and Use of Firearms in Schools, which will serve as the basis for national discussions among different stakeholders for the development and implementation of action and response protocols to firearms incidents in school settings.
The initiatives and recommendations presented and discussed during the Seminar will serve as practical references to strengthen the efforts already being made by Jamaican institutions in the violence prevention sector, particularly school violence.
Dr. Anna Paolini, Director of UNESCO’s Office for the Caribbean expressed on behalf of the UN Resident Coordinator that “the national seminar gives evidence to the capacity of the UN system to collaborate for development by leveraging the multinational expertise of its agencies and taking them to the shores of member States. Jamaica recognizes that the issue of violence in schools requires a multi-stakeholder approach, and the UN welcomes the opportunity to play its role as partner”.
This Seminar forms part of the activities carried out under the Saving Lives Entity (SALIENT) fund initiative in Jamaica, which seeks to operationalize and mainstream small arms control into development efforts and policies in Jamaica and marks the end of UNLIREC´s firearms in schools’ component under the Salient project.
The SALIENT fund initiative is implemented in Jamaica by the Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) and its Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNLIREC), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), as well as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
On 26 October, the Ministry of Education and Youth (MoEY) of Jamaica, in collaboration with the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNLIREC), hosted a roundtable meeting on responses to tackle the presence of firearms in schools. The roundtable meeting aimed at promoting dialogue at the national level on this phenomenon between the different stakeholders and sectors.
During the event, the current context of the presence of firearms in Jamaican schools, their possible impacts, and the challenges that this problem represents were discussed. Representatives from MoEY, the Jamaica Police Force and the Jamaica Planning Institute exchanged views and experiences highlighting some of the measures being implemented to address gun violence in schools.
Discussions focused on preventive approaches across the Latin American and Caribbean region. “While Jamaica has not had many incidents involving the use of firearms on school campuses, it is important that educators and agents of change must work together to proactively identify preventive approach”, emphasized a participant.
UNLIREC informed those discussions with a presentation on the main findings of its regional study ‘Firearms in Latin America and Caribbean Schools- Approaches, Challenges and Responses’. During the presentation, UNLIREC highlighted the main of the manifestations of this phenomenon as well as good practices which are implemented across the region.
To promote the exchange of good practices, the Ministry of Public Education from Costa Rica participated in the roundtable, sharing its initiative entitled ‘Gun Free Schools’, a public policy that is being implemented at the national level in all public schools in Costa Rica and that has includes in regulatory frameworks, protocols and guidelines, data collection, awareness raising campaigns and concrete actions which engage young people.
This virtual roundtable forms part of the activities carried out under the Saving Lives Entity (SALIENT) fund initiative in Jamaica, which seeks to operationalize and mainstreaming small-arms control into development efforts and policies in Jamaica.
The SALIENT fund initiative is implemented in Jamaica by the Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) and its Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNLIREC), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), as well as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
UNLIREC, in collaboration with UNESCO, conducts webinar ‘Violence in schools: challenges and responses’
On 25 May 2022, the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNLIREC), in collaboration with UNESCO Cluster Office for the Caribbean, carried out a webinar on ‘Violence in Schools: Challenges and Responses’ for Jamaican audience. Twenty-four participants, including 18 women, from Ministry of Education and Youth, University of West Indies, Jamaican Constabulary Force, Ministry of National Security, Civil Society Organizations, UNESCO, UNICEF, and Major Organized Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency of Jamaica actively participated in the webinar.
Over the past few decades, media reports of incidents involving firearms in schools have been increasingly recurring in many countries of the region. These incidents which include both the presence and use of firearms inside schools have led to injuries and fatalities as a result of intentional and accidental gunshots. This phenomenon poses enormous challenges in ensuring safe learning spaces for children and adolescents in the region.
Against this backdrop, the webinar included a presentation from UNESCO on the impacts of violence in the region and highlighted responses that can be adopted to combat violence in schools. Meanwhile, UNLIREC presented its study on ‘Firearms in Latin America and Caribbean Schools- Approaches, Challenges and Responses’. With a focus on the Caribbean, UNLIREC presented a regional overview of armed violence in schools and shared different responses being implemented in the region to tackle the presence and use of firearms in schools.
The webinar also included an engaging panel discussion on prevalent forms of violence in schools in Jamaica and school-based intervention programmes being implemented to combat such violence. The panelists included a representative from the Ministry of Education and Youth, a professor from University of West Indies and a youth leader from Bully Proof Kids (NGO). Through this webinar, UNLIREC facilitated a national dialogue by providing an opportunity for the participants to ask questions and share experiences on violence in schools in Jamaica.
This webinar forms part of the Salient Fund project aimed at reducing violence and proliferation of illicit firearms in Jamaica.
As part of the cycle of activities that UNLIREC has been carrying out between 2020 and 2021 to encourage conversation regionally and nationally about the phenomenon of firearms in schools, a webinar on ‘Firearms Prevention in Schools’ was held on the 16 December in collaboration with the Ministry of Education in El Salvador.
In this virtual event, UNLIREC shared the main findings of a study on Firearms in Schools in Latin America and the Caribbean: approaches, challenges and responses, presenting a regional overview of the main characteristics and developments of this phenomenon in recent years in the countries of the region, as well as sharing a series of initiatives and measures that have been implemented in some countries in the region to tackle and prevent the presence and use of firearms in schools.
To provide a national perspective on this phenomenon in El Salvador, the Ministry of Education gave a presentation in which many topics were highlighted, including the different types of risks to which schools are exposed, the current legal framework that prohibits carrying and bringing arms to schools, as well as the different measures and actions aimed at guaranteeing safe learning spaces which are free from violence.
As part of these measures, campaigns aimed at educational communities on issues of coexistence, continuous training for teachers, as well as inter-institutional coordination with the National Civil Police and other institutions to promote actions aimed at preventing the use of weapons in educational centres were highlighted.
This webinar was attended by around 175 participants, including staff from the Ministry of Education (such as educational and pedagogical advisors, coordinators, technicians, teachers, among others), as well as staff from the prevention areas of the National Civil Police.
This webinar was made possible thanks to the valuable financial contribution of the Government of Sweden.
On the 9 November, UNLIREC and the National Agency for Controlled Materials (ANMaC) of Argentina held a national dialogue on the prevention of firearms prevention in schools. The main objectives of this virtual event were to share the principal findings of the regional study conducted by UNLIREC on firearms in schools, as well as to promote the intersectorall dialogue regarding impacts, challenges and routes for action to prevent the presence and use of arms in schools.
As part of the agenda of this meeting, UNLIREC shared the main findings from the study Firearms in Schools in Latin America and the Caribbean: approaches, challenges and answers. In this vein, UNLIREC presented the regional overview of the main characteristics of this phenomenon in recent years in the countries of the region, as well as sharing a series of initiatives and measures that have been implemented in some countries in the region to address and prevent the presence and use of firearms in schools.
ANMaC held a presentation in which they highlighted the specific policies developed by the Agency in this area in recent years, highlighting the different actions that were implemented to raise awareness in educational communities about the risks and impacts of the proliferation and misuse of firearms. Of these activities, the workshops “Beliefs that kill” and “Disarming Masculinities” aimed at students from secondary schools from different provinces in Argentina were highlighted.
This national perspective was complemented by a presentation led by the Alfredo Marcenac Civil Association from the Argentinian Network for Disarmament, which highlighted some underlying cultural elements in societies that influence the phenomenon in question, such as the symbolic value assigned to weapons as mechanisms for conflict resolution. During this intervention the experience developed in the framework of the Educational Programme for Disarmament Awareness and Peacebuilding aimed at educational institutions at different levels in the Province of Buenos Aires was also shared.
This virtual meeting was possible thanks to the generous financial contribution from the Government of Switzerland.
