The Tribune

By SANCHESKA DORSETT

Tribune Staff Reporter

sdorsett@tribunemedia.net

MORE than a dozen compassionate sixth grade students at Centreville Primary School gave handwritten poems and prayers to the Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF) yesterday for the families of the two teenage boys who were brutally murdered ten days ago.

Senior Pastor of Church of God of Prophecy and Former Assistant Commissioner of Police Hulan Hanna, who is also a member of Fathers Assisting Children and Teachers (FACT), said the idea for the students to write their feelings down came to him after he learned of the deaths of 13-year-old Keishon Williams and 15-year-old Davante Lindsey.

The bodies of the boys, who are cousins, were discovered shot to death on a dirt road off Graham Drive, Yellow Elder Garden on March 19.

“I came to the school as a part of the FACT programme,” Mr Hanna said. “After the children were murdered, we came to the school and we looked at the children’s faces and we saw they were traumatised because, in this class, we had children who were 12 and 13 and the thought swirled around in my head, ‘what can we do in Centreville to impact something that happened in Yellow Elder?’ And so the idea was born.

“We asked the children to write prayers and we invited the media to see what we were doing because we want everyone in the community to be driven toward wholeness. So today all the children brought two poems, one for the family of the 13-year-old and one for the family of 15-year-old. Unless and until we see that this is a community problem we will never get our head wrapped around what is happening in our country,” Mr Hanna added.

School Principal Jacqueline Sands said she is proud of the children and their efforts to make the “families feel better”.

“This is a wonderful initiative,” she said. “It encourages empathy and sharing in other persons sorrows and I am proud of the students and pleased with Bishop Hanna for partnering with us and ensuring that he does his part as a community party to lead and guide our children in the right way.

“We encourage our children to show love. In our society we see so many of our children who don’t what love is. As the principal of the school it made me proud to see the children do this; they asked for the Lord to bless the families and to forgive the persons who did it.”

The letters will be delivered to the parents of the victims by RBPF Family Liaison Officer Chrislyn Skippings.