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Re-Birth Project delivers scholarship

Published:Sunday | April 6, 2014 | 12:00 AM
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Carol Narcisse (left), a facilitator at the Re-Birth Project, encourages this Tivoli Gardens High School student as he explains to the group how his presentation depicted the lessons they learned in their workshop on 'Avoiding temptations in the street'. - Contributed Photo
Parents participating in the Re-Birth Project, in this opening exercise, show the important role parents play in directing their children through the maze of life, as well as the consequences teenagers face when they refuse to listen. - Contributed Photo
Poye Robinson (left), motivational speaker at Saturday's Re-Birth Project, reasons with a student from Norman Manley High School after her mother outlined concerns about the teenager's behaviour, involvement with the wrong crowd, and falling grades at school. - Contributed Photo
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A second-form student from the Norman Manley High School will have her entire university tuition paid in full - if she can get there.

This was the promise made by a generous benefactor after hearing Odette Stables' heart-felt plea for assistance with her daughter at Saturday's Re-Birth Workshop, an intervention programme aimed at reducing and preventing delinquency of at-risk high-school students.

Overcome with frustration and, at times, too tearful to speak, Stables took the microphone after a stirring motivational presentation by Poye Robinson to ask for advice. The emotional mother explained that her daughter's grades had fallen drastically since she began the eighth grade and she was now leading a gang of older girls from a lower stream at the school.

Moved by Stables' appeal, the benefactor called the teenager to the front of the room. Noting her academic ability and leadership potential, the benefactor pledged to pay her university tuition to any local university if she matriculates, and demonstrates a commitment to changing her current path by leaving the gang, improving her behaviour at home and at school, as well as respecting authority - especially her mother.

Stables' daughter is one of 25 students from the Norman Manley and Tivoli Gardens high schools selected by the Ministry of Education who, along with their parents, will participate in the nine-week programme dubbed The Re-Birth Project.

The programme sponsored by the Spanish Court Hotel, ScotiaFoundation, GraceKennedy Financial Services, JPS, First Heritage Co-operative Credit Union, Sagicor Life Jamaica, COK Sodality Co-operative Credit Union, Cari-Med Foundation, Juici Patties and Laris Productions focuses on influencing positive attitudes and reforming behaviour of teenagers identified as at-risk. These students, aged 13-15 years, reside in volatile communities in Kingston and St Andrew, are academically gifted, but display maladjusted behaviour which manifests in fights, truancy, failing grades, conflict with peers and blatant disrespect for authority.

Founded and driven by the Melody Cammock-Gayle-led team of Michelle Cunningham and Carolyn Johnson, the Re-Birth Project employs protective strategies to encourage youth to strive for excellence, help to buffer them against the risk factors they might face, and enable them to better navigate challenges without succumbing to delinquency. This will be done with the involvement of parents, support from the schools, the expertise of select resource persons and interaction with various executives and motivational speakers who can relate to the teenagers' realities.

Such persons include Glen Christian, CEO Cari-Med; Marcus Steele, managing director, Carreras; Mark Chisholm, VP, Sagicor; and Rodney Bent, 2014 CB Pan Chicken Championship parish winner. "We hope these success stories will inspire the young people, by providing a new vision for their own lives' possibilities.

"As we saw with the scholarship commitment, anything is possible. So we really hope this offer will serve as a strong incentive for both mother and child to build resilience and work through the issues to triumph," Cunningham, co-founder of the programme, said.

"What we want for the young people who are a part of this project is for them to become leaders in their own sphere of activities. Leaders in terms of academics, peacemaking, being committed to excellence, (taking responsibility for their actions) and then encouraging others. We are hoping to positively impact young people and that those who benefit from the project will ... be able to benefit others. We want this little spark to light a fire," Courtney Campbell, CEO, GraceKennedy Financial Services, a sponsor and participant of the programme, explained.

BE OPTIMISTIC

Opening the session last week, Poye Robinson shared his own compelling story of overcoming delinquency, and encouraged the teenagers to be positively different before Carol Narcisse, educator and policy development analyst, and Lasco's Top Cop, Sergeant Hodel Harris, facilitated workshops on 'Avoiding Temptations on the Street'. "It was a tremendous pleasure talking to these students. It was good but also emotional," Robinson said after his gripping presentation. "I also had anger problems growing up and was even suspended from Ascot High School and had to go to the police station for anger counselling after I hit someone with a chair. I've tried everything, 'badmanism', 'gangsterism', and they don't work."

Currently working on a new business venture, Robinson, 27, is the founder and CEO of International Travel and Cultural Exchange, a business he started in 2010. Though losing his sight due to glaucoma in 2012, Robinson went on to complete his degree in Logistics and Supply Chain Management from the Caribbean Maritime Institute, graduating as valedictorian of the class of 2013. He also holds a diploma in International Shipping and is an affiliate of Visionary Youth in Action.