Strengthening the Family for Development: Policy Implications.

By Emmanuel Babatunde, D.PHIL.(Oxon.)

This is a unique moment in history. It is the end of a century which saw the tentative steps to aviation develop into giant strides of global fusion through tremendous technological innovations. That much of this technology developed in response to the need to prosecute two World and other localized wars is a warning, as the millennium dawns, that our notions of development ought to be carefully re-examined. It does not take one with deep interest in millenary cults¹ to note that, although centuries have come and gone bringing in millennia, this particular one is ominous especially on its impact on the human family - the fundamental building block of the society.

 At the risk of boredom, please permit me to reiterate the seminal elements in this centennial transition into millennial "splendor". The tentative steps of the Enlightenment period which seemed to make science and technology the ultimate measurement of human development seems to have peaked at the close of the twentieth century. Improved telecommunications, with satellite dish and information super highway, and the World Wide Web Internet technology have coupled with strides in bioengineering to ensure that no one can afford to Eve and die unto oneself. The internationalization of capital through improved methods of rapid capital transfer has ensured the consequent globalization of labor. It has also led to a deliberate social engineering phenomenon which attempts to create a monolithic perception of "reality" or more precisely, "ever-changing reality", that will perpetuate the ever-changing interests of those whose views have over-run the conceptual plane of verbalization.

Even Heraclitus the philosopher of flux, of perpetual change, to whom is credited the statement, "no one steps into the same water in a flowing river twice" would be hard put to it to understand the excessive mind bungling rate at which ideas come and go in our media driven world. As M. Zeitlin, R. Megawangi,E, M. Kramer, N. D. Colletta, E. D. Babatunde, & D. Garman. Strengthening the Family : Implications for International Development.Tokyo . United Nations University Press, 1995, with particular to this phenomenon as it relates to the family in the United States noted

... immense advertising budgets for the new consumer products have centered on two consuming social units -nuclear family and the individuall (Dizard and Gadlin 1990,46) - and have not hesitated to awaken and appeal to such anti-family incitements as the desire for extramarital sex to sell products. The individualistic worldview of the United States, however, may have created a particularly American experience of capitalism. Dizard and Gadlin (1997,47) state that the advertizing moguls of Madison Avenue were consciously actualizing a way of life that expressed the theories regarding human nature and social organization that were being formulated in esoteric journals and select conferences (1995, 19).

It is not the fear of change that is of concern. Change is inevitable. What is problematic is the suggestion that the only thing that is sacred is rapid change itself for profit at the expense of the enduring values that can strengthen the family for development. People who seek to strengthen the group ought to recognize that, as we change to be more effective, we need to preserve the old values and practices that instill discipline, commitment and purpose and apply them to cooperate and compete with others. This is why the efforts of the NGO Family Forum of the J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University that has yielded this epochal conference, is unique in many ways.

On the Web page of this great institution, Brigham Young University, under the section on J. Reuben Clark Law School, the reputed NGO Family Voice categorically recognized a situation that has troubled some of us exceedingly. It stated that the United Nations' new role of law­making responsibility to the world, as it relates to the family, is not inclusive enough of views that can lead to the strengthening of the family. One is particularly happy not only at that recognition but more so about the fact that BYU is doing something concrete about it. It was appropriately noted that

During the past decade, the United Nations has assumed a major role: that of international lawmaker. But as the lawmaking function of the U.N. has increased in importance, democratic input to the UN often has been limited to the voices of a few, powerful lobbies. Many of these lobbies, moreover have been hostile to traditional family, religious and cultural values. As a result of the one-sided influence of these lobbies, the United Nations faces substantial pressure to adopt legal norms that pose serious threats to family stability (NGO Family Voice Web Page, 1999, 1)

One is encouraged that people who share strong commitment to the usefulness of traditional values to development are provided the opportunity to meet and discuss frankly how our views can add to the dynamic discourse on development and the future of the human society. All too often, indifference and mere complaints, not backed by resolute efforts to contribute to the democratic process, leaves the field for those more persistent in getting their views across as the only views on issues of their times. This conference demonstrates that BYU has seized the moment in providing unique leadership for three crucial reasons.

Firstly, this conference is occurring at a time, in the most dynamic and materially blessed democracy, when some in the legal profession seemed to have joined forces with the talk show segment of the media to question the traditional values and patterns of interaction associated with the family. This is an age in which, with the help of legal support, children divorce their parents and parents divorce their children. The words of Zeitfin et al. about the transformation of the sacred family environment into a battleground between members, pulled in different directions, as they seek their individual personal comfort zones is worth noting here.

The home, no longer a refuge of harmony, serenity, and understanding, may become the site of confrontation between people of different ages and genders, who have personal ideologies and social affiliations that are as diversely suspended as exotic species in a tropical rain forest. Human potential organizations, such as Landmark Education, ease this jangling overload by holding workshops in which participants learn to perceive their personal past history to be as mechanical and as meaningless as television images. The human potential movements redefine personal identity in terms of the individual's choice of commitment to future goals (1995 27).

It is important that the basic unit of human society, the sacred classroom in which the individual, as a member of the group, gets his or her first learning, be made a haven of strength and support. It ought not to be reduced to a battleground reminiscent of Thomas Hobbes depiction of the state of nature in his Leviathan where every one is fighting with everyone in an effort to satisfy their basic instincts. It is therefore unique and commendable that Brigham Young University Law School should provide the chance for concerned scholars, researchers and policy formulators to exchange views as to how to strengthen the family for development. The discourse will among other things, enable us to identify the values and patterns of interaction associated with the group referred to as the family. The discussion should also assist in identifying what values, behavior patterns and attitudes ought to be preserved even as we adapt to the changing world around us.

Secondly, at a time when those who are dominant project their views as the only views on the given topic of the family, even when they know that the views of many child friendly cultures contradict their views of dominance, it is commendable that the NGO Family Voice has gone out of its way to bring, these views along, hitherto silent, as truly representative majority views. Distinguished scholars, policy makers in the area of the family in America and other areas of the world who would not have been selected by their local governments to attend such an import policy related conference are here. Policy Issue Conferences of great import to the World do not aim merely to provide opportunities for sightseeing for their participants. They are serious for a for impacting on the evolution of the society into the future. Serious Minded policy makers and Academics need to enrich the discourse with the perspectives provided by research and interaction at the grass roots level. Hence we have in our midst in this conference, in addition to the many distinguished scholars and policy makers from North America and Europe, equally serious minded policy makers and researchers from the major countries of Africa, Nigeria, South Africa, The Gambia, Botswana to mention but a few. These represent views from different groups, creeds and dispositions on the family, thus providing an enriched body of comparative data, which should be the envy of those who aspire to diversity and inclusiveness. They also remind us that those who hold traditional family values and which to mobilize them for development are in the majority in the World.

Thirdly, in these times, notions of development focus too narrowly on technology which is the most effective and efficient way to achieving an equally narrowly defined end. Not much effort is put to factor ab initio concerns for its impact on the society. It is gratifying that the NGO Family Voice has redirected the focus of a world in flux to the beginning, the starting point of the family as the basic unit of the society. It has invited us to answer the question, "how can we strengthen the family for development?  "The President of this august institution President Merill J. Bateman, Dr. H. Reese Hansen, the Dean of the Law School, Attorney Kathryn Balmforth and Professor Richard Wilkins, the Directors of the NGO Family Voice and all those who have contributed to make this experience possible deserve our commendation.

I would be remiss in my responsibility if I did not, at the on set, mention two facts as clearly as I possibly can. Firstly, Professor (Dr.) Marian Zeitlin, a distinguished researcher in the area of Nutritional Anthropology, formerly of the reputable School of Nutrition, Tufts University, Medford, Ma. was the driving force behind the book Strengthening the Family : Implications for International Development, which emerged from the three country study by UNICEF New York and the WHO/UNICEF Joint Nutrition Support Program. It studied the factors that contribute to balanced physical and cognitive growth of children in poorly endowed social environments. I served as the Consultant anthropologist to the Project among the Yoruba in Nigeria.

My duty here and in my humble contributions to scholarship and public policy on family values and interaction patterns in diverse cultures have always been to provide, through ethnography, the cultural foundations of the traditional logic that underpin behavior. The intention is to see how old values can be mobilized to sensitize people to new levels of achievement. Far too many periodic Development Programs in Africa, in particular, and in non­-industrialized countries, in general, have failed because, development has been perceived as a one way process that began by having a clean break with the traditional values of past and magically taking on a whole new mentality and ways of doing things. Even as vigorously as the contributors to the book Strengthening the Family : Implications for International Develop Development struggled to overcome this way of thinking, we failed on some occasions. Note for instance the assumptions that underpin the effort to mobilize the cultural continuities relating to the family in the development effort:

We seek to nurture the family in newly emerging technological societies in a manner that maintains continuity from the past to the future, and avoids mistakes made by the industrialized countries. This goal was a part of the Positive Deviance Project: Family, as the cradle of culture, cannot be approached generically (Zeitlin et al. 1995, 5)

Yet in the same vein, the book assumes that modem nuclear family forms which emphasize the conjugal bond between husband and wife over the diffused consanguineal bond of the extended family network with its potential for more support for child rearing is seen as the ideal for development.

Widespread agreement remains today that the modem nuclear family, with its two parents and two or three children, is the ideal end result of progress in the evolution of family forms (Elkind 1992; Zeitfin et al. 1995 15)

On the contrary, my humble opinion is that Westem-style development should not necessarily lead to atomization of members of the family into individuals competition with each other for the greater material benefits which have proven not to provide a meaningful satisfaction for the yearning of the human soul. I have also suggested, using Japanese society, as a case in point, that development need not sacrifice wholesome family and community values in its effort to improve the profit margin (Babatunde, 1992 222-240; 1997; 1998; Zeitfin et al. 1995 5). The gain that is made at the expense of the group is more than often off-set negatively by the amount of stress we try to carry as individuals without much success in the post-modem society. We are left empty to be in perpetual search for meaning, thus confirming the words of St. Augustine in his Confessions, "Thou has created us O Lord, and our hearts are restless, they shall be restless until they come to rest in Thee". Rather than take the quotation as a proof that there is no solution, it is being suggested here that families in the post modem society can learn from the pre-modern enduring values that teach honor, loyalty, commitment, hard work for the benefit of the community as the measurement of a meaningful successful life. As Zeitlin et al. noted

under these global conditions, it is hoped that the profitability of expanding markets for consumer goods at the expense of the family will yield to the profitability of recreating the family as a responsible unit for the production of disciplined children with strong technical skills.

In order to realize that hope, everything positive that contributed to a meaningful life in the old cultural systems, even the appeal to higher powers, cannot be ignored,. To deny that aspects of spirituality be mobilized in the effort of development for a people who are spiritual is to remove the raison d'etre for actions. Besides, it is recognized today that an important part of therapy for over coming addictions in the post modem society are programs which include an appeal to higher powers. Why does the post modern man or woman who is intensely suspicious of the supernatural as the absolute be so easily disposed to accept Him unquestioningly when s/he is in need of therapy? Even the most current research on the family in this country has now grappled with this reality by looking at the "paradigm of Family transcence" (Bahr, H. M., Bahr, K. S. 1996) even though scholars of a different persuasion have question the assumption of closeness as a constant given in family relations (Berscheid 1996). Whether we agree or not the notion of transcendence itself has always provided more meaning to the family and has been a powerful catalyst in assisting members in the group in times of crisis.

With the Yoruba, the beginning and the end is God, the transcendent one conceived as the caring, nurturing father. He disciplines his children out of love so that they can fulfill their God ­given potential. Permit me to illuminate the discourse with ethnographic data from the ancient Yoruba of south Western Nigeria.

The Family: Protection, Provision and Perpetuation

Among the few cultural universals that anthropology has identified, three pertain to the family process. These are (a) the institution of the family itself, (b) sex rules that not only specify prohibitions but advance the desire for chastity and (c) the need to rigorously prepare for marriage through a well defined rites of passage. Different non industrialized cultures rate procreation as the highest good - the summum bonum - and parental responsibility the most important duty that one can perform for the perpetuation of an orderly society (Babatunde, 1992 100; 1998 10, 20, 134, 147; Zeitfin et al. 1995, 157). An analysis of Yoruba ethnographical data on these three cultural universals will show how relevant they are to contemporary policy considerations on the family. But in order to fully unearth the rich symbolic and practical implications of these to the family, it is important that we look at the 3 Ps - procreation, provision and perpetuation. This exercise will lead us invariably to the examination of the Yoruba 5Ss - Spirituality, Society, Self, Sexuality and Sensibility.

The ancient Yoruba people are, Eke most of their ethnic relations in sub-Saharan Africa, a very spiritual people. The Yoruba's deep sense of awe and respect for God and his purpose in creation is the key to understanding any activity of the Yoruba, particularly his deep commitment to marriage and child care. The Yoruba world view consists of three levels of existence. The first and most important is existence in Orun the dwelling place of God, the ancestors who are the saints who have lived well and have received the reward of their fives of decency, hard work, loyalty, commitment to the family and the community. Aye the second level of existence is the world of the living, the earth as the dwelling place of the living which is differentiated from the earth as the burial ground for the dead, iboji oku. The burial ground is a gateway to the ancestral world for those who have lived just lives. Sandwiched between the earth and the heavens is the womb Oyun Inu. The mother's womb is a sacred place of fertility that is both a source of personal and collective continuity. Both the womb and the graveyard are temporary but necessary transitory abodes (Morton-Williams 1960, 34; Lawal 1977, 50-5 1; Babatunde 1985, 24; 1992, 45).

The Yoruba's belief in reincarnation teaches that the reward of being admitted to heaven is an opportunity for the individual ancestor to have the prerogative of visiting their progeny on earth by attaching themselves to the essence of fetuses in the womb. The Yoruba belief that sexual activity is directed towards procreation and that at the moment of coitus, the divine breath is imparted on the sperm for in the sperm is the humunculus, that is, miniature child. The child is therefore at once the product of the Almighty, the reincarnating ancestor or saint together with his or her distinct essence. With this characteristics, it follows that the Yoruba believe that human life is sacred and it begins with the moment of conception, that children must be cared for otherwise the community will attract divine punishment, that marriage is a must for good nurturing of the child and that marriage should be between a man and a woman or between, a man and two or more women provided he can be a good loving, impartial and wholly responsible husband and father. So when I read the NGO Conference Mission Statement on the Web I was ecstatic and the confluence of ideas

The family is Man and Woman bound in a lifelong covenant of marriage for the purposes of- The continuation of the human species, the rearing [of]children, the regulation of sexuality, the provision of mutual support and protection, the creation of an altruistic domestic economy, and the maintenance of bonds between the generations

The Yoruba and Brigham Young University are certainly on the same page in their united desire to strengthen the family for fair and just cooperation and competition in a new global village. Let me reiterate that while people who hold to similar views are in the majority in the World, in this country now this conference is one of the few safe places that one can make this pronouncement categorically.

The African proverb, "it takes a village to raise a child" actually comes from the Yoruba repertoire of wise sayings about communal responsibility for child rearing and adolescent care. Pregnancy is the immediate proof of human participation in the divine prerogative of creation (Babatunde, 1 §98) and the Yoruba who have the highest frequency of unaided and naturally conceived twin birth rate in the World treat the mother as a sacred vessel of God's intent. A common Yoruba saying is "mother is gold". The mother is very important, because "the very nature of the immortality of the soul flows cyclically through the lineage through the birth of children, and not primarily through the type of afterlife pictured by Christianity or Islam (Zeitlin, 1995 157-158; Hallgren 1991, 120-122)."

The Yoruba, like most non industrialized societies of the world, see marriage and the family as major steps in the life of an individual, steps that have dire consequences for the orderly perpetuation of the society. The societies have in place, processes that prepare the individual and test their readiness for these vital roles. Marriage is seen as a rite of passage into adulthood. It begins with courtship and goes through a series of meticulously set processes that culminate in the birth of the first child. The adolescent is set apart from his normal routines of life. He or she is secluded for a period that ranges from six months to one year. During this period, the youth is under the care of mentors. They are taught conflict resolution methods and put through stresses that test their endurance. The implication is to have a proof of their manhood or womanhood as a certificate of readiness for this all-important role of being parents. In fact, among the Ituri Forest people of the Bakongo, Khoikhoi and the Masai where people live and farm close to dangerous wild animals, a common test of manhood is for the man that is ready for marriage to confront and kill a predator. The rationale is that the one who is a father must not run away upon being attacked by a ferocious animal and leave his wife and little children to the mercy of the marauder. I am often amazed by the response of my American young adult students who consider this test preposterous When I challenge them further, to explain their incredulity, some often retort by thanking God that do not have to be exposed to such dangers before they select their partners. When I push them further to examine their culture for comparative dangers, they all to the last person affirm that there are none. Then I go further to identify the instantaneously addictive crack cocaine, the crippling materialism that makes the unskilled independent teenager be indebted to the tune of $19,000 by the age nineteen, then their eyes widen with the feeling that comes with awareness. We shall see the application of rites of passage to policy issues related to the reduction of violence in America later in this paper.

Unfortunately, industrialized post modem societies in which adolescents need all the help they can get from all the plethora of distractions are the ones least prepared to help the adolescent suing preventive cultural remedies. These societies exalt a set of values in which material things are more highly regarded than spiritual things. As I have noted elsewhere,

In American society, the emotional needs of the adolescent are reduced to certain practical milestones: the acquisition of a driver's license, the movement to an apartment and independent living, taking a job, securing a financed automobile, registering to vote and becoming old enough to consume alcohol.

Each of these steps comes with powerful responsibility and stress. Most adolescents need help in coping. But in industrialized societies, this period is marked by estrangement from adults and even a general social attitude of suspicion. Adolescence is viewed in popular culture, not as an important transition to adulthood, but as a period of license and trouble. This view can become self­-fulfilling (Babatunde, 1997b).

A few models of rites of passage are gaining ground in the contemporary American society. The Jewish Bar Mitzvah has increased in popularity in the Jewish community as a useful structure of transition of the adolescent to adult responsibility of commitment and responsibility. Rites of passage as a structure of transition, has become quite popular for black male adolescents. We will use the Lincoln Institute of Rites of Passage and Family Values to which I serve as the Director­ founder as a case in point later.

An important activity in the traditional Yoruba marriage process was the test of virginity on the night of the marriage ceremony. The bride was led to the bridal bed upon which a white bed sheet was spread. After consummation of the marriage, an elderly woman would enter the room and examine the bed sheet for tell tale signs of blood. If there was none, the individual female had failed the test of virginity. The failure would bring shame to the name of the family from which the spouse hailed. It was deemed a sign of good breeding for one's daughter to remain a virgin, that is, chaste until marriage. Sensibility the last of the Yoruba 5Ss is that as a result of the dire consequences of exposing one's family name to public ridicule, every member of the extended family and the society assumes the obligation to protect the morals of the adolescent. As severe and trying as this practice is to the female, it ensures that more often than not, most girls remained chaste until they were married. Imagine the usefulness of this manipulation of the sense of guilt and shame to instil the sense that the individual is special and sacred to community dignity. More particular, imagine the multiplier effect of this cultural practice as it relates to the prevention of lethal sexually transmitted diseases.

The prohibition of incest, anthropologists contend, is reinforced by the rule of exogamy, which is the prescription that one can only select marriage partner from outside the group of people related to one by blood. Although prescriptive cross cousin marriages occur, in some areas of Africa, most societies, especially patrilineal ones forbid marriage with anybody related by blood. Through the structural analysis of Yoruba myths of origin and migration, I have shown elsewhere the political capital that exogamy generates and what are its policy implications. Suffice is it to say that the Incest rule goes beyond a mere preference for political capital accumulation, to much more fundamental dislocations of group dynamics. As Figure I shows.

KEY

1. A is the husband of B
   
2. C and D are siblings
   
3. The broken lines that proceed from A to C and B and D hypothesize incest
   
4. E is the product of Incest from A and C
   
5. F is the product of incest from B and D

"Destabilization of Family Dynamics: The problems of Incest

1. A is at once the father of C as well as the father and grandfather of E
   
2. B is at once the mother of D as well as the mother and grandmother of F
   
3. C is at once the daughter as well as the consort of A
   
4. D is at once the son and "husband" of B.
   
5. E and F are at once the siblings as well as the children of C and D.

Figure 1.

Incest taboo collapses the generational levels, mixes up the statuses and roles of the normal family, turns siblings and parents and their children into consorts and effectively blunts the ability of the family to engage in and cement such engagement with the bonding that is strongest outside the kinship group. At the level of discipline, jural authority which is the obligation for the parent or the primary care-givers to teach right and wrong to new family members, an ability reinforced by punishing infringement and rewarding conformity is completely paralyzed. In the case of Incest, those who are saddled with teaching and enforcing the rules, attitudes and skills socialization process of sexual prohibitions are the first to break it. As the Latin Proverb goes, Nemo dat quod non habet - "no one gives what he does not possess". In other words, at the two crucial levels of authority and arrangement of patterns of accepted relation, incest strikes at the heart of the family. When this reality is compounded by the frequency of deformity from incestuous liaisons precisely because there is no genetic complementarity made possible by introducing genes from unrelated members, then this phenomenon is not only relevant to policy in the areas of Law, Human Services, Mental Heath but also in the areas of Public health.

Moving From Policy Formulation to Implementation: Outreach to Coatesville, PA And Baltimore, MD

Following the release in 1996 of the 1995 edition of The State of Black America by the National Urban League, whose purpose is document and assess the conditions of African Americans, panic spread the rank and file of many a professor at Lincoln University, the first Historically Black College or University for people of African descent and the alma mater of Justice Thurgood Marshall, Presidents Kwame Nkrumah and Nnamdi Azikiwe to name but a few. The data presented about the state of Black Youth was particularly frightful. In 1988 63.7% of Black children were born out of wedlock. 44% of black children live below the poverty line. 68% of black girls have had sex by the age of 15 while 40.7% of black girls become pregnant by age 18. As if that was not bad enough, The black dropout rate was 50% in cities. Blacks who are 12% of the total population accounted for 45.3% of the inmates in the Federal and State prisons. Only 23.4% of young adults from age 18-25 are enrolled in colleges. The mortality rate by then for the 18-25 age bracket was 3.25 times that of black women. 56 % Of the households were headed by women and of this 39.9% lived under the poverty line.

Various faculty symposia discussed the glaring facts with a view to doing something no matter how small under the aegis of Lincoln University as the first historically black University. The understanding was that the university ought to unite with people of good will in the communities as well as corporate partners to effect some change. The immediate fall out of this effort was in the area of curriculum development. A multidisciplinary empowerment university seminar was developed for freshmen. It compared the family life of the Amish with that of the Yoruba of West Africa. Both ethnic groups based the foundations of their cultures on spirituality. The communities of both were very family oriented, child centered, adult ruled and elderly controlled. The silent social engineering intention was to expose students who were identifying with their African roots in dress and hair styles to more substantial aspects of Yoruba culture, especially the attitude to seniors, sex rules, the importance of continence and waiting until one was before having children. The Amish served as a living example of the fact that old traditional values are still quite relevant to fife in America. Raw data for comparative and experiential purposes surrounded us. We lived in the Amish community and we had quite a few Yoruba teachers and students on Lincoln campus. While we have not gauged the impact of this class by any deliberate statistical parameter, we can say categorically that the classes have been over subscribed every semester. It has even generated a few exchange program study abroad opportunities to Nigeria and Ghana.

The second fall out was a practical community outreach to Coatesville originally. Coatesville, located along Brandywine River in Chester County of Pennsylvania, covers 1d.6 square miles and lies 35 miles east of Philadelphia, 25 miles west of Lancaster, 30 miles north of Reading and 20 miles southwest of Wilmington, Delaware. The city has a population of 11,038 made up of 54% White, 38% African American, 5% Hispanic, 1% Asian and 3% others (1990 census). According to a 1992 survey 90% of the low income/unemployed lived in project houses. Coatesville was a Steele town that had fallen on hard times due to global economic conditions.

Fr. Michael Akintolu a Nigerian Catholic priest who was a doctoral student at Sterling University researching into the impact of poverty of local communities served as our contact person. The first three months was used to develop a community of willing elders, identify support systems in the community and bring all the houses of worship, Christian, Muslim and Jewish to collate their serves to the community. Duplications were stream fined. Then the elders identified male students who were talented and but who needed help. The same process was done with select candidates from Baltimore, Maryland 57 miles south of Lincoln University. The elders did community service with their wards, supervised them in running errands for the senior citizens and supervised their homework. The elders also liaised with their school. These candidates were from the 9' grade to the 12' grade. In the summer, they were brought to Lincoln University for an intense one-month residential living and learning experience at Lincoln. Faculty members in Nutrition from Delaware University and Anthropologist, Psychologists, Teachers of Art and Karate and Spiritual director worked together with specially trained mentors to round the clock to provide them instruction leading to behavior modification.

The participants had special uniforms, stayed in the same dormitory area, observed strict rules of curfew, worked together and played together. They cleaned the communities. Each day began in the chapel and ended in the chapel. They had no radios, no appliances and not even private televisions. They watched the World News together.

Findings

It was easy to find $40,000 to keep a man in jail in Pennsylvania in a year, than to find the same amount to keep twenty people out of jail

1. Most young adults do really yearn for some structure that is consistent and honest.
   
2. Most young adults cannot deal with silence. Silence is chaotic to them Silence is to them what noise is to people who can meditate.
   
3. Concerted effort works if is related to practical job oriented knowledge.
   
4. Once the importance of reading and writing and mathematics was made clear in terms of employment, candidates put a lot of effort into their work.

We have got calls as far afield as Florida and Newark, New Jersey showing interest in sending candidates to participate in the exercise.

Ladies and gentlemen, Scholars, Researchers and Policy Formulators, to strengthen the family is to prepare people for meaningful development. Traditional values protect us often against undue stress. For as I reiterated elsewhere

Industrialized societies need to rediscover some of the basic values of traditional societies. Trust, honor, love of neighbor, forgiveness and reconciliation drastically reduce stress in dealings among people. However, when right and wrong are replaced by legal and illegal, then the good becomes whatever one can get away with. One is encouraged to do "whatever it takes" to succeed. These values break down trust (1997b)

I hope that we do continue to advance a major finding of this conference that no one can win the struggle to strengthen the family alone. Well endowed universities like BYU should follow the example of BYU by pairing up with smaller less-endowed universities to implement good remedial projects that can strengthen the family and the community for meaningful and souldful development. Thank you all for your attention.

1. Millenary cults occur often at the end of the century or millennium or during periods of human crisis such as wars. The often imply the end of the world as it is known and the commencement of a thousand years of peaceful reign by the messiah.

References

Babatunde, E. D. A Critical Stgdy of Bini and Yoruba Value Systems of Nigeria in Change: Culture, Religion and the Self. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1992

The Need to take a Broader View of African Cultural Practices. In the Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 26, 1996

Cultural Differences and Marital Crises Among Africans and African­ Americans: Case Study of Some Immigrants. In Sudarkasa, N. and Nwachuku, L (eds.)Exploring the African American Experience. Lincoln: Lincoln University Press. 1996

The Need for Values. In The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 111 1997b

Why it is Valuable to Value Our Elders. In The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 2" 1997

Strengthen Bonds to stay grounded. In The Philadelphia Inquirer, May 11'. 1997.

The Status of Women in Ketu Myths and its Sociological Ramifications. Women's Research Program Publication Review (National Taiwan University. 199 1.

Women's Rights versus Women's Rites: A Study of Circumcision among the Ketu Yoruba of South Western Nigeria. Lawrenceville: Africa World Press, 1998

Bahr, H.M. & Bahr, K. S.(eds.) A Paradigm of family transcendence. Journal of Marriageand the Family, 58, 541-555, 1996

Berscheid, E. The "Paradigm of Family Transcendence": Not a Paradigm, Questionably Transcendent, but Valuable, Nonetheless. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 58, 541-555, 1996.

Hallgren, R., The Good Things of Life: A Study of the Traditional Religious Culture of the Yoruba People. New York: Plus Ultra., 1991

Lienhardt, R. G. Self: Public, Private: Some African Representations." Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford, 11(2): 69-82.

Morton-Williams, P. The Yoruba Responses to the Fear of Death, AFRICA XXX, pp.34-40, 1960b.

NGO Family Voice http://www.law.byu.edu/NGO_Family_Voice/ngobg.hmtl,- 09/29/98

M. Zeitlin, R. Megawangi, E, M. Kramer, N.D. Colletta, E.D. Babatunde, & D. Garman.Strengthening the Family : Implications for International Development.Toyko.United Nations University Press, 1995.

Paper presented at the World Family Forum organized by the NGO Family Forum, Brigham Young University J. Reuben Clark Law School, Provo, Utah, 13th - 15th of January 1999

Emmanuel Babatunde, D.PHIL.(Oxon.)
Director, Honors Program
Lincoln University, Pa. 19352

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