Women With Wisdom Conference begins March 8

Strapped with financial issues, Adult and Teen Challenge Jamaica (formerly Teen Challenge) is hoping that the upcoming three-day ‘Women With Wisdom’ conference, set to begin on International Women’s Day, March 8, will activate a turnaround in the fortunes of the organisation, which was closed in November 2020.

The event is set for the First Assembly of God Church, Shaw Park, Ocho Rios and starts at 6:30 p.m. daily, under the theme, ‘Equipped for Greatness’.

Over the three days, the conference will feature several powerful women, including Pastor Jennifer Straw, Pastor Sara Cowan, Dr Yvonne Graham, and Minister Carlene Davis-Cowan, among several ladies who will bring praise and worship. The event is being staged under the auspices of the custos of St Ann, Norma Walters.

Barbara Richards, who, with her husband, has operated the Christian-based organisation, Adult and Teen Challenge Jamaica, since 1997, has successfully used the facility to rehabilitate scores of drug addicts over the past quarter century.

The advent of COVID-19 affected the operations of the facility which was forced to close in November 2020 and is now seeking to re-open to continue its mission.

“We’ve been trying to re-open since August 2022; we’re struggling to re-open because of financial issues,” Richards told The Gleaner.

She added, “We’re having financial issues because we are supported mainly by missionaries coming to the island and staying at the women’s centre and paying us to stay and helping us doing other work. So that’s our mainstay of support, but with COVID the missionaries went and we lost contact with a lot of them.”

Richards is hoping the facility can re-open by April as there is a waiting list of women who need help.