Honouring Betty Ann Blaine's legacy

LET US HONOUR BETTY ANN BLAINE’S LEGACY: PRAY FOR, PROTECT OUR
CHILDREN, PRIORITIZE THEIR HEALTH AND SAFETY
Hear The Children’s Cry (HTCC) is challenging Jamaicans to honour the legacy of beloved Child Advocate Betty Ann Blaine, in the most meaningful way possible — making life better for our children. As HTCC’s Spokesperson, Senior Attorney at Law Priscilla Duhaney says:
“May 13 marks two years since the passing of Betty Ann Blaine, Founder of Hear The Children’s Cry (HTCC) and one of Jamaica’s most fearless advocates for children. Though she is no longer with us in body, her voice, vision, and burden for the nation’s children continue to guide our work.
“Betty Ann Blaine founded HTCC in 2002 with a simple but urgent mandate: to ensure that no child in Jamaica suffers in silence. For over two decades she stood on frontlines many others avoided speaking out on missing children, child abuse, human trafficking, and the breakdown of family life. She was relentless in calling for national solutions, including her
repeated call for a Ministry of Family and Parenting to place children at the centre of government policy. Betty Ann believed advocacy without prayer was empty.”
In the two years since her transition, HTCC has pressed forward with the work she began:
• Demanding greater resources for schools, to address violence and mental health
• Calling for a 1 ()-year national parenting behaviour modification project
• Advocating for research on missing children and human trafficking
• Keeping the cry’ of Jamaica’s most vulnerable before the nation.

“As we remember Betty Ann,” Miss Duhaney stresses, “we don’t just mourn. We mobilize.
Her fire for justice, her compassion for the hurting, and her faith in God’s power to restore are woven into everything we do at Hear The Children’s Cry. The walls are still breached. The children are still crying. So we will not stop.”
Apart from Hear The Children’s Cry, Betty Ann Blaine was also the founder of Youth Opportunities Unlimited which provides urgently needed mentorship support for inner-city children, adolescents and their families. She served as the pioneering Holistic Child Development Coordinator at the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology in Kingston, as a
lecturer in Southern African and black American history at The University of the West Indies, and as a leading spokesperson in the Jamaican Anti-Apartheid Movement.
HTCC Director, tertiary level educator Nigel Cooper shares how moved he was by her passion for children’s welfare, noting,
“Numerous times she would see a child on the street and jump out of her car to help, she was
not afraid to engage and be active. I remember her working with others to set up a programme
with the YMCA to provide training to upskill those youth involved in window wiping at stop lights. ”
Miss Duhaney concludes,
“HTCC invites Jamaica to honour Betty Ann Blaine’s legacy this Child Month and beyond: pray for our children, protect our children, and prioritize their mental health and safety. That is how we keep her voice alive.
“The Lord was beside her. He is beside us still. And as long as He is, it is alright.”

Contact: Nigel Cooper, HTCC Director, WhatsApp 876-825-6598,
email ncooperia@gmail.com
Contact: Priscilla Duhaney, Senior Attorney at Law, HTCC Spokesperson, Whatsapp 876-
792-3781, (876)704-4724
email

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Tel: 876-822-0483
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