Baynes: THA to help faith-based groups achieve goals

A faith-based forum has been rolled out by the THA Division of Community Development, Youth Development and Sport.

The disclosure was made by the Secretary of Community Development Terance Baynes as addressed reporters virtually during Wednesday’s virtual post-Executive Council media briefing.

According to Baynes, this forum aims to bring much-needed support to the faith-based organisations.

He said the forum had its first meeting this past week.

“What the faith-based forum is really about: it’s a committee of representatives from different faith-based organisations that will preside over various things that the government can do in the various divisions to assist these organisations to carry out their mandate. We are now working on a policy framework as to what that will look like and we have put the team together to get inputs from these leaders and so on, because I believe that they play a critical role in the development of our island, the development of our people. We are engaging them.”

He said the initiative has been on his mind for some time now.

“I always had a concern about how political organisations and politicians have used faith-based organisations to advance their cause, whether it is to get into power, whether it is for politicking whatever. After elections and after people get into governance, and these organisations have their agendas and have their plans on what they are trying to do because they make a contribution in the development of this society, sometimes you find that the kind of support that should be there from the government, as a matter of fact, it's not there and I have always felt that because they have a stake in the development of this society, that government should be making some kind of contribution to assist them with getting to where they are trying to get to with their programmes and so on.”

He said additional information on the forum will be provided.