The Tribune

By KEILE CAMPBELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kcampbell@tribunemedia.net

AS The Bahamas observed the International Day of Families 2025 under the global theme “Family-Oriented Policies for Sustainable Development,” Sister Cheryl Walkine Alexandre, founder of the Marriage, Children, Family Alliance Movement (MCFAM), urged national leaders to place families at the core of development planning.

“Families are the start and the finish,” she said. “These systems are supposed to act as safety nets, but families are leaning on them as if they’re permanent solutions.”

She warned that overreliance on government and civil society is eroding family resilience. Families, she said, have become socially dependent and often neglect their responsibilities.

She attributed the issue to institutional oversight as well as cultural trends. “We are five years away, and there’s still nothing significant that really intertwines families in the national development of the nation,” she said. “National development is—we’re hearing national development plan, but what part does family play?”

MCFAM has worked with the Ministry of Social Services to launch National Family Week and is collaborating with the Ministry of Education and the Family Life Council on curriculum reform.

She also highlighted MCFAM’s campaign, “Bahamas Well 2024 and Beyond: Give Family More, One Nation to Restore,” aimed at promoting household-level empowerment.

“Focusing on boys only, girls only, you know, women only is not as impactful as showing where the family has a major part to play in whatever challenges that boys, children, girls, women face,” she said.

Her comments came during a symposium in New Providence yesterday marking the International Day of the Boy Child, hosted by the Bahamas Crisis Centre in partnership with government agencies. The event focused on boys’ emotional and sexual health and acknowledged the impact of family breakdown.

Dr Sandra Dean-Patterson, director of the Bahamas Crisis Centre, cited absent fathers and weakened extended families as contributors to youth violence, poor mental health, and lack of direction among boys.

“Is it the breakdown of the family? Is it the fact that the extended family is no longer there? Is it father absence, father deprivation?” she asked.

Minister of Education Glenys Hanna-Martin encouraged students to seek support from mentors, schools, and churches.

“We all gotta lean on somebody sometime,” she said.

Walkine Alexandre is expected to continue her advocacy at the Second World Summit for Social Development in Qatar this November. She stressed that including family specialists in policy planning is essential for lasting national progress.

“That has not been necessarily a part of the bigger narrative,” she said. “It’s still like a subset rather than us, right? It’s not an integral part of the development plan.”