In celebration of Men’s Week the Gender Unit, in collaboration with Anguilla Community Action Network (ACAN), organized a panel discussion on the topics ‘Empowering Men in Relationships’ and ‘Healthy Relationships between Men and Women’. The event which was held at the Dominion Faith Centre, and aired on Radio Anguilla, was a thought provoking session that begs for a continuation of sessions to go deeper into the issues and to find solutions.
The panel was chaired by Kenneth Hodge, Principal Assistant Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs & ACAN Advisor, who proved to be a very able host, in guiding the evening’s proceedings. The panelists who came from a cross sector of society, were Pastor Ashford Desouza, Mr Shem Wills, Dr Clive Bryan and Mr Chris Richardson. There was general concern among the panelists about the men being absent in the homes, in the schools, in correctional institutions and not being at the forefront in society in general. They were all in agreement that boys need men to teach them how to become men. As Pastor Desouza said, “You can’t leave a young man up to himself. The elder men must teach the younger men how to become men.” Dr Bryan’s take on the issue was that “it takes a woman to raise a boy and a man to raise a man. After 9 or 10 testosterone kicks in and a boy needs a father or positive male figure to give confirmation that ‘my masculinity’ is on the right track – if not he could choose negatively.”
Again there was general consensus that the emerging culture of men not being in committed relationships needs to be broken, as single parent families account for a large proportion of Anguilla’s society, with the resultant negative issues accompanying such. And as far as relationships between men and women were concerned, Dr Bryan commented that “every man must work out his own salvation”, causing much laughter in the audience. Pastor Desouza known for his controversial ideas told how he had advised a young woman, who was complaining that the father of her child was not giving any support, “to stop holding on to the child, give it to him to take care of so he could know what taking care of a child calls for.”
According to Dr Ronya Foy Connor of the Gender Unit, “I would say that this was definitely a wonderful event. It was a lot more information than I even anticipated when we originally planned to have ‘Empowering Men in Relationship’. We said we would focus on relationships with the opposite sex, but that we would also look at relationships with other men – and I think they really did a good job expanding upon that – and then going into why it is important to have fathers being actively involved in their child’s life. And that is an issue here in Anguilla. So I am very pleased that they talked about fatherhood; the importance of mentorship. Even if you are not a father, and you are a positive man, you need to take one of the younger men under your wing. I’m so happy they talked about that…So I think it was a great event and I’m thankful to Principal Assistant Secretary, Kenneth Hodge, and also John C Lake of ACAN.”
