The kids want peace

Apologies for the long gap - it's not been a great December, and I also think that applies to Bermuda as a whole, as most of the news has had to deal with gun crime and murder. I think many overseas readers would be stunned to believe that there is gun violence in this little country, but the truth is here.

I was encouraged by this montage from local primary schools a few Saturdays ago where the children drew pictures depicting their thoughts on violence or peace. They were very creative in their drawings and some of them really showed the reality of the situations at hand, such as broken families. The kids seem to get it, and that should be encouraging.

Question is, once these kids get a bit older, how do we maintain the focus and desire to live a clean and healthy lifestyle, and allow them to reject a lifestyle where they're committing serious crimes against each other?

There's a group called "We Will Rise Above, Bermuda" that formed recently, with a series of action plans to try to tackle the problem at the grassroots/community level. I think it shows real initiative. People are tired of relying on the Government to come up with answers, and may also be frustrated with the Police for not being able to apprehend everybody at fault (then again, there's an issue with people not being willing to report incidents... another story).

I think it has the potential to bring hope to the community and a way to cutting off some of the problems at their roots. That said, we still need to take care of the bad issues that are already malignant in our society.