From rude boy to role model - Pastor Andre Bloomfield joins campaign to mentor boys

When Andre Bloomfield learnt that he was about to be a father at age 21, he was not only shocked, but totally unprepared. Still, as a child who grew up with a single mom of five, he was determined to be the father he never had to his son.

"When yuh grow with a single mom, she has to have someone in the house. Suh every now and then, [there were] different, different stepfathers. But it wasn't the same as having a dad around. I didn't have a father in my life to tell me how to grow, so I used to do things I wouldn't want to see any young boy do," said Bloomfield, who is now 33.

"I was very rude. I used to steal out a the house, guh places with friends; things that a father would stop a son from doing."

However, when Bloomfield, who is the pastor of Centre Stone Deliverance Ministry in Port Antonio, Portland, had his son, he recognised that he had to be more responsible; and that completely changed his life.

"When I had my son, I made a pledge that I would remain in his life until I die or until he gets older and moves on with his life, because I don't want to see him go through what I have been through," Bloomfield said.

On Thursday, Bloomfield was one of 100 men who signed up for the 'Men Who Mentor' campaign launched by the National Parenting Support Commission (NPSC), an agency of the Ministry of Education and Youth. He decided to do this after counselling six students who were having difficulties at a primary school in Portland.

"When I heard of this programme, I jumped on it because I really wanted to get certified in the programme. I want to become a mentor for young boys, so if they don't have a father, they can have a father figure. They can come to me with any problem," Bloomfield explained.

"I want to see the young boys in my community be better, elevate, move from one level to the other, not sitting every day one place and expect that things will come to them. I want to help them get up and go achieve things out there that they would really want to achieve," Bloomfield added.

CEO of the NPSC, Kaysia Kerr, told THE WEEKEND STAR that since 2015, the NPSC has had a thriving mentorship programme which has reaped great success. However, of their 502 mentors across Jamaica, only 32 are men, pushing the organisation to ask more male volunteers to come on board.

"We're of the opinion that a woman can't father a boy, a woman can't father children. and so, this thrust is really to, one, encourage male enrolment; but, two, for very specific purposes, we want the cohort of men to really target other men who need support," Kerr said. She added that in 2020, an NPSC survey revealed that men find it easier to speak about their problems with other men.

"We find that sometimes men are not as vocal, especially towards women, to say that 'Hey, I'm challenged in this area', or 'I am feeling this way', because feelings speak to emotions, and so sometimes they are not as tapped in to their emotions," Kerr explained.