Bennetlands is a ghetto community in the heart of Kingston, Jamaica's capital city - home to 5,000 inhabitants - half of them under 25 and over 2,000 of them unemployed. Once, despite the poverty, Bennetlands was a peaceful place, with daily life revolving around the four main pillars of the community - its primary school, two churches and the S-Corner Clinic which provided health care, support and education for school drop-outs. But in the 1980s war broke out in the region - with rival 'corner' gangs fighting a vicious turf battle over Bennetlands' one high street, terrorising the neighbourhood and preventing children from going to school, and for most of the residents Bennetlands became a prison without bars. This week's City Life tells how the local leaders joined forces to challenge the local gangs to heal their difference and work together to restore a sense of community in one poor Jamaican neighbourhood.

Things have been so bad that the Seventh Day Adventist Church has some seats at the back kept free for those who prefer to keep their back to the wall. Beacon of hope in the community is the S-Corner Clinic. Director Angela Stultze Crawle explains: "It is an integrated community development initiative in which the main emphasis, really, is to improve the living conditions of the citizen in this area and these are through programmes of health, education, sanitation, outreach programmes and those things."

Horace Levy, Chairman of the S-Corner Clinic Board, says that these area gangs are not really criminals. "The "corner crew" must be sharply distinguished from a criminal gang. A "corner crew" is there to give solidarity and self-respect and identity to a group of youth. . . That's not to say that these corner crews do not commit any criminal acts - they do. They have guns, they use them - they maim, they shoot, they kill - but they don't organise for that purpose and they are redeemable."

For young men, the gun became the symbol of male pride. Where the guns come from, nobody knows - though one local resident hazards a guess: "from foreign in barrel".

But the S-Corner complex had won the respect of the entire community including the dons and area leaders, by providing health care for young and old. Angela explains: "The old ladies are their mothers, are their grandparents and so they really need our presence and because we have built that relationship with them over the years we were now at an advantage to say if you do not stop shooting at each other then - we'll just close." And when someone was shot right outside the clinic, the community was outraged.

A meeting was called with the pastors of the two churches, the S-Corner Staff and the Principal of the primary school. The crews were blaming each other for the violence. It took about 15 meetings over several months to persuade the area leaders to meet. But, with protection, they agree to come. One admits he's sick of swapping dead bodies for live bodies; another says he regrets the passing of the local football league, choked out by the violence.

At the end of the day there's a cease-fire, but it's a fragile one - there are still guns out there. Soon another teenager is shot. But because of the peace initiative, there's no retaliation, no chain reaction of revenge killings. The community is realising that peace has a value. When Pulus tries to get a job, they ask where he lives - and tell him: "No man! We don't want that form of people in our place!"

So local jobs and better housing are badly needed. The Catholic priest Father McPherson is making sure that he keeps his side of the bargain: "We promised that we would find them jobs, we would build relations with them and the police, we would find them a playing field that they could go and play football in, in the afternoon."

Horace Levy says that youth are becoming more conscious - "more aware of the foolishness of fighting among themselves and of being used and abused by politicians. So it's a moral force that's driving the peace not, not economics, really, which is extremely interesting." What is bad, he says, is that farmers are still being driven off the land, which creates more unemployment. "There's also debts, external debts and internal debt, a massive amount which is preventing the state spending what it should on social services."

In Bennetlands, a Community Development Council has been formed, where problems can be discussed and disputes resolved. Former 'corner crew' member Glen is now a highly respected health worker at the S-Corner clinic. Fabien is a "proud example" of someone who can "make it" in the ghetto: he's completed school and is going to university - in the meantime he teaches at the local school. Crime in the metropolitan area - including Bennetlands - has fallen by 23% in the last three years, and that peace is precious.

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