Minister of Social Services and Urban Development, the Hon. Frankie A. Campbell (left), with Pastor Uriah Taylor-Rolle (centre), the overall winner of the 2021 Urban Renewal Commission’s Father of the Year Award and Mr. Kellen Russell, Acting Director, Urban Renewal Commission. (BIS Photo/Patrick Hanna)

Campbell urges honourees to expand mentorship to others

Nassau, The Bahamas – Minister of Social Services and Urban Development, the Hon. Frankie A. Campbell, encouraged fathers attending the annual Urban Renewal Commission’s Post Father’s Day Awards Ceremony to expand their mentorship to include those children in their communities whose fathers may be absent from their lives.

“We must continue to identify all of the great fathers out there while we continue to make, build, prepare and mold our young boys to become the kind of fathers that this nation truly needs. We must ensure that we create the kinds of prospective fathers that our beautiful daughters deserve; we must ensure that there is an appreciation for the role of the father towards the mother, the mother towards the father and the parents toward the children that result in the kind of co-existence that builds a strong family unit and results in stronger communities, a stronger island and ultimately a stronger Bahamas.”

“Verse One of the 23 Psalm reads: ‘The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want.’ Let us play with those words a little bit and if you were to say: ‘the Lord is my Father, I shall not want.’ That verse explains the role of the father. Because of whom my father is, I shall not want because he is going to provide, as best as he can, all of the basic needs – food, shelter, clothing, education; because of whom my father is, he is going to do provide, as best as he can, all of the emotional stability – the love, the care, the compassion that a child needs and so like in that first verse, the child shall not want. Our children need to have that comfort and that confidence.

“And then in verse 4 it says: ‘Yeah though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.” There will be those moments in life when children will be afraid, when they will be troubled, but again, because of who their father is, because of the commitment their father would have shown, they can be comforted that they can walk through those difficult phases of their lives with the confidence that they have protection; that they have a protector. But in providing this protection, fathers, you first have to establish a certain degree of respect within your various communities so as to command the degree of respect that will extend to your families, and you do this by being upright, by being upstanding, by being trustworthy, by being reliable, by being an example that others will want to follow.

“And then a portion of the final verse says: ‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all of the days of my life.’ Another Bible verse reads: ‘A good man leaves an inheritance even for his children’s children.’ I previously viewed this message as speaking to leaving a physical inheritance such as money and/or property, and while it is important to leave a physical inheritance for our children’s children, the good, solid, legacy that we can leave behind as good men and even greater fathers, is also what will ensure that surely goodness and mercy will follow our children and their children all the days of their lives,” Minister Campbell added.