African families attend seminar on parenting

Jersey faith group Mount Hope SDA hosted the event with Rouge Bouillon Primary School

Dozens of parents from Jersey’s African community have attended a seminar on how to help raise their children in the island.

The Christian group Mount Hope SDA hosted the event at Rouge Bouillon Primary School on Saturday.

The school’s head teacher, Russell Price, spoke about how to encourage children to excel in academic work and Tina Hesse, from the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS), talked about how to help children become resilient.

It was the first time the faith group held such an event and plans to hold similar events were going forward, group leaders said.

Families told organisers they would like more such events

Tapiwa Munyawiri, part of the Mount Hope SDA group, and who attended, said there were a lot of parents who grew up in Africa finding parenting in Jersey "exciting but challenging" while they want to "balance work and life".

Mr Munyawiri added: "We wanted specialist advice in this society, which is evolving and is very different from the way our parents brought us up".

He also said people who attended told him that they definitely need more of this", and that the group would work on when it could next hold a similar event and how often they could be held.