I am currently overseas and woke up to the devastating news of the tragic death of promising young cricketer 16-year-old Vonde Bowers. I wish to convey sincere condolences to Ola, David and the rest of Vonde’s family. My heart is aching for my community.

Crime in our community needs to be controlled and soonest. A multi-faceted approach is needed. I call on all of us as residents of this community to join in the fight against this scourge.

Let us end the finger pointing and work together to devise a crime fighting strategy. We are all in this together.

We need to also focus on crime prevention. We need more youth intervention programs.

To this end, I must highly commend the Office of Youth Intervention within the Royal Police Force of Antigua and Barbuda for their youth intervention programmes in our community. They need our full co-operation and support. They are helping us to help ourselves. We have a duty to support their endeavours.

We need a community united against crime and violence. I call on parents, schools, churches, community groups, sports clubs, etc. to double the efforts in the fight.

Let us save our young people. We cannot give up on this generation. Enough time has been spent talking about the problem. Let us be a part of the solution.

Our community is bigger and better than the problems we face. Together, we can overcome.

God bless.

Richard S. Lewis MP