Time for men to ‘step up’

There is a need for men to “step up”, according to Amal Reid, Organiser of the men’s forum entitled, “Good Men to Great Men”.

While speaking to the media yesterday at The People’s Cathedral Primary School at the Men’s Forum, he explained, “I realised there was a need for men to really ‘step up’ and this idea was birthed because as a male teacher I had the
experience of students calling me daddy, and at first I didn’t understand it, and I stopped and I thought about it, and I realised that there were many children who did not have that father figure. There are many men out there that want to be good fathers and there are different reasons that they are not, but many of them generally don’t know how to be a good father; they were not taught it, or they never saw it in their own lives. The problem we have is that the baton has been dropped and the generation before them did not pass it on to this father and then he in turn cannot pass that on to his own, so it has become a dangerous cycle.”

He added, “The session is entitled ‘Good Men to Great Men’, this will be the first of many sessions and there was an event called, ‘The world needs a father’ that was the impetus behind the push for this session. It also coincides with The People’s Cathedral School’s Family Week which ends June 29 under the theme ‘Working Together, Building Families.’”

At the session, the Presenter Dario Richards highlighted that the world needs fathers and fathering is important to society. He stated that he speaks at the prison and 98 per cent of those young men are fatherless, therefore being a good father is important to society. However, he believes you can only grow if you know yourself. He made the point that when people are getting married they go for some type of counselling, but men don’t go for any classes or even mentorship, so therefore sessions like this are important...” (NB)