MoBay Boys and Girls Club to be reopened

The Montego Bay Boys and Girls Club is scheduled to be reopened today, on the anniversary of the birth of the late founder, Gladstone 'Pop' Lawrence.

River Bay Road, where the club is located, was recenty renamed in Lawrence's honour. Deputy Mayor of Montego Bay, Councillor Richard Vernon, said the reopening is an initiative to help curtail the parish's crime rate.

"We want to ensure that our youngsters are properly engaged, especially those whom we call 'unattached'. We need them, because they are the ones that find time to be otherwise engaged, and then we have all the problems," he said.

He added that "curricular development will help to engage our youngsters and mould them into more rounded and productive individuals".

Vernon emphasised that being a clubbite is more than a membership, it is a way of life.

"It is a culture. We want to bring that back, to present this institution, once more, as the vehicle of rsocialisation of the marginalised and unattached youth of Montego Bay," he emphasised.

Minister of State in the Office of the Prime Minister (West), Homer Davis, said that many lives have been transformed because of the club.

"Not only that, but the influential leadership of Pop Lawrence has been second to none, who did tremendous work to transform, especially, the inner-city youth of Montego Bay," he said. Davis noted that under Lawrence's guardianship, the club enjoyed dominance in sports, music and academia, with national footballers such as Theodore 'Tappa' Whitmore, Paul Davis, and Steve 'Shorty' Malcolm coming through the ranks.