|
Ato
Boldon gets face to face with a Hillview College student
at the school’s hall on Thursday. In the foreground
are students of Tunapuna Government Secondary, who, along
with El Dorado Secondary students, also attended Ato’s
stop on the Guardian in Education’s Making a Difference
school tour.
Photo: Lester Forde
By
Lisa Allen-Agostini
He wasn’t tall enough to reach the mic on the stand,
but a Hillview College student had the whole school hall
rocking with laughter on Thursday, when he asked Ato Boldon
in a small voice, “I want to know if girls have ever
affected your school work.”
“Why?”
asked Boldon.
“Are
girls currently affecting your school work?” Boldon
asked.
The slight young man shrugged.
“Yeah.”
It was a light moment in the midday session at the Tunapuna
school, where Boldon was the feature speaker in the Trinidad
Guardian’s Making a Difference school tour.
Hillview, El Dorado Secondary and Tunapuna Government Secondary
students listened as the former Olympic sprinter told his
life stories of struggle and triumph.
His message of the day was for the students to keep things
in perspective.
“Often
times, as a young person, things that seem like they may
be a big thing could be changed by altering your perspective,”
he said.
“There
are very few times in your life that you would make a step
from which you cannot recover.”
He urged them to stay in school and appreciate it, despite
the fact that most of the students who packed the hall raised
their hands to show they hated school.
“There
are millions of children who would say, ‘Oh, you don’t
like school? Great! Get up, give me your uniform and go
so.’” Boldon said.
“You
all are required to make the best of this opportunity while
you can. Do not take it for granted.”
Boldon, cyclist/promoter and painter Michael Phillips and
Miss Universe 1998 Wendy Fitzwilliam have been making the
rounds of secondary schools throughout Trinidad on the tour,
which is co-sponsored by the Ministry of Education.
West Indies cricketer Brian Lara and Olympic medallist George
Bovell III are also scheduled to join the tour later on.
Other sponsors include RBTT, National Gas Co, BG T&T,
Guardian Holdings and Yara Trinidad.
The tour is part of the Guardian in Education project, an
essay-writing competition started in 2000.
Students are asked to use the celebrities’ speeches
for not only writing essays, but inspiration for changing
their own value systems.
Boldon told the students he was a skinny and unattractive
boy at 14, in “no danger of any girl being interested
in me.”
He admitted he was a nerd.
“You
all selling yourself short if you believe that the people
you should aspire to are Fifty Cent and Jessica Simpson,”
Boldon admonished the students.
Bill Gates and Sir Richard Branson, two multi-millionaires,
were better role models, he said.
Gates, who created the Microsoft empire, must have laughed
at the people who laughed at him for being a nerd, Boldon
said.
“Gates
may have said, ‘I will be here with my pocket protector
and my glasses, working on Microsoft.’ And now he controls
it all,” Boldon said.
Phillips was at the school in spirit, since he sent hundreds
of tickets for the West Indies versus the World cycling
tournament he is now running.
The event started on Wednesday and is scheduled to run until
May 8.
Guardian circulation and marketing manager Cyntra Achong
announced that students who attended the cycling series
and wrote a story on it had a chance to win a bike and protective
gear.
Phillips is offering the prize to the student who writes
the best article, which will be published in the Trinidad
Guardian’s Sports Arena magazine.
|
