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Ato
Boldon chats with some St Augustine Senior Comprehensive
Secondary students after a motivational lecture on Monday.
Photo: Noel Saldenha
By
Joanne Briggs
Ato Boldon’s challenge was never the inability to speak.
But when he spoke in front of a hall filled with St Augustine
Senior Comprehensive Secondary students on Monday, he came
face to face with tough questions.
“You
all are asking some real controversial questions,”
he joked.
Nevertheless, Boldon welcomed them, intrigued by their concerns
about their country, and responded to the challenges with
his own introspection on how to deal with crucial issues.
“How
to deal with drugs in school?” asked a student.
Boldon said that despite drug awareness programmes that
existed, it was not going to solve the problem.
“Some
people have to go that route and learn the hard way,”
he said.
“As
long as I am in control, everything is good.
“As
for me, the minute you start to go down that road of the
drugs you don’t have control anymore.”
However, if a person opts to lead that life, “more
room and oxygen for us,” Boldon said.
What can be done to battle the level of crime?
“Everybody
have to be real nosy,” he said.
It’s a question of accountability and responsibility
of the people and not the officials that govern the country,
Boldon said.
“Like
if I come home and I have a brand new pair of sneakers and
my mother knows she didn’t buy it for me,” he
said.
“So,
how I get that pair of sneakers?
“I
see children come home with all sorts of things—material
and otherwise—and they (parents) don’t know.
“If
you lived on a street where there was a family with five
or six children, you knew what was going on with them, but
now, everybody close their door and not studying outside.
“The
young people don’t want to take responsibility, the
parents don’t want to take responsibility.
“The
Government is the net, but the net is so big...so, at some
point it is up to you all.”
Boldon said he would like young people to get more proactive
about society.
“Doing
nothing can be extremely dangerous,” he added.
Negativity has to be dealt with a tough skin, the Commonwealth
record holder said.
“You
have to harden yourself. Be strong-willed. At no point is
everything going to be 100 per cent supportive.
“There
are going to be twists and turns. Just accept that it is
going to come. You are going to do everything in your power
to see your plan all the way through.”
When another student asked what role traditional morals
and values played in society, Boldon lamented it was getting
to a point where such lines were close to extinct.
“The
line between those in authority and someone who is under
authority went from blurred to non-existent,” he said.
“It’s
cooler and hip to be impolite.”
Boldon urged the students to make it a priority to retrace
those lines.
He said he believed that there was a need for corporal punishment
in schools.
“For
certain very serious offences,” Boldon said.
As for spiritual and moral values, Boldon emphasised the
need for young people to create a spiritual centre.
“Everybody
needs to have one,” he said.
His advice to the young men in the audience, as requested
by a female student was, “Nobody is telling you not
to have confidence or a sense of self, but don’t be
such a man that you have your ego or pride as a chip on
your shoulder...you could end up dead.”
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