By Emmanuel D. Babatunde

These are only suggestions to stimulate further discussions that will lead to the adoption of a body of more refined strategies that should help this August body of Researchers, Policy Makers and Advocates to make the impact of this highly successful forum felt in the World at large.

In the last three days, copious information from the participants from different parts of the World and creeds has confirmed that the view that traditional family values be mobilized in for development is a majority view. Unfortunately, this majority view has not been fully articulated to impact policy making on account of two reasons;

1. the wisdom of informing international development with traditional family values for the good of mankind, hitherto, seemed so clear as not to need a vigorous and vociferous defense
   
2. the pernicious advocacy of views that are at variance with traditional family values seems to have succeeded to the extent that it has embedded these anti-family views in policies issues relating to the family in the World.

Advocates of traditional family values can no longer afford to be complacent or passive. Those who strongly favor the need to inform development with traditional values of respect for the sanctity of marriage and family between a man and a woman, the nurturing and the socialization of children to be spiritual, respectful, responsible, accountable, reciprocal and hardworking by putting the service of the needy before their own, must say so loud. They must also work hard, anywhere they are to ensure that what they believe informs policy. The following are three kinds of strategies to consider:

1. Organization:

1. On account of proven leadership, the availability of organizational structure and resources, establish a coordinating center of worldwide efforts to promote traditional family values in development at BYU(built on existing cooperation between NGO Family Voice and the Howard Center).
   
2. Establish Traditional Family Fora at the state, national and international levels to identify problems besetting children, adolescents and parents in their areas with a view to mobilizing remedial efforts that strengthen the traditional family.
   
3. Establish Traditional Family Youth Fora at the secondary and tertiary levels of education in all the member states and provide resources for them to meet frequently to discuss issues relating to the traditional family and the growing pains and joys of adolescence.
   
4. Find resources to put Traditional Family Forum views and desires constantly in the local and international media.

2. Research:

1. Identify from this highly successful NGO Family Voice meeting and the next World Congress meeting a group of seasoned researchers, male and female, from the different ethnic groups of the world, creeds and professions who will collate and disseminate, in non-technical terms, the findings of meetings on the family to inform all interested parties.
   
2. The commissioning of synchronic as well as diachronic or longitudinal studies detailing the positive influence of tradition family on children and parents.
   
3. The identification of well documented studies, if any, that show the deleterious effect of non-traditional families on children and the family at large.
   
4. Commission text books for schools that tell simple stories of family interaction showing parents spending time to be with and train their children to work around the house, to help neighbors in need. Such texts ought to show the reward of acts of respect, honor, loyalty, hard work and good manners in the family, at school and at work.

3. Policy Forum:

1. Ensure that Candidates who are sympathetic to views advanced by the Traditional Family Forum ideals get into important positions of policy formulation.
   
2. Find the resources to ensure that Traditional Family Forum members attend all meetings relating to the family in which important positions will be made.
   
3. Make concerted effort to ensure the participation of skilled and well-informed members from non-Western areas of the world to counteract the tendency for anti-family forces to pick on less informed members from these areas whose only duty is to affirm their anti family views.

4. Implementation:

A major point of interest that I have heard from different delegates to this World Family Policy Forum is the amount of natural joy and friendliness that our Utah hosts radiate as they carry on the awesome job directing the demanding duties of this impeccably run conference. The young students are respectful, decent and dedicated, always ready to assist. Their professors and parents have been very welcoming. From the elder Dallin H. Oaks, to President Merril J. Bateman, to Dean Reese Hansen, to the indefatigable Professor Richard Wilkins and Executive Director Kathryn Balmforth, to the able support of Professor Terrance Olson, all we have received is the gracious affirmation of the spiritual foundation of our humanity. The consensus of opinion is that you are definite doing things right here. We feel it in the joy that you have for the family. We have been treated as your family. There is hope for the future.

America needs this sense of peace and joy that obviously comes from commitment to God, the fatherland and the family. If you keep this joy to yourself in Utah you will be like those who light the light and put it under a bushel.

Help us to help the poor families. God has blessed you here at Utah and BYU and you have cast your lot with what is right. Adopt programs that help the poor and the needy Americans like you who are born out of wedlock or into poverty. It should not be so difficult to find $80,000 dollars to keep 40 black or white poor Americans out of jail forever when it is so easy to find $80,000 dollars to keep one white or black man in maximum security jail in one year.

Director, Lincoln Institute of Rites of Passage and Family Values
Lincoln University, Pa
Tel: (610) 9328300 x 3545
Fax:(610) 9321077

E-mail: Babatunde@lu.Lincoln.edu

Families Worldwide
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