Three role models for the depressed areas

THE EDITOR: I will open by straying a bit from the hot topic of the kidnapping and subsequent successful rescue of UWI employee Maria Dass and crime in general, and mention instead a report in the news media concerning three young men from Laventille who recently graduated with engineering degrees.

Their names are Christian Birchwood, Kern Boyd and Jason Emmanuel James Jr.

These three role models should be portrayed as heroes in their community and hopefully some of the misguided and displaced youths from depressed areas can learn fist hand what can be achieved with discipline, hard work and sacrifice. Congratulations and well done guys.

Please forgive me and I mean no offence to anyone from a dispossessed and somewhat downtrodden community, but we who live in this country know of the challenges that these men would have faced coming from an area that stereotypically breeds lawlessness. So again I say kudos to all of you.

And to all the haters out there, I honestly believe that our new Commissioner of Police is more patriotic to the red, white and black than most of these naysayers combined. When last have you seen anyone more willing to take on the dangerous criminal elements in TT in such a fearless, organised and cohesive manner?

Say what you want about Gary Griffith, he is getting the job done and has the bad boys on the run. It just goes to show what good leaders can achieve if given the opportunity to serve.

This man has the exact same police force and resources at his disposal as his predecessors, but in just a few short months look at the difference he has already made.

Let this be a reminder to all of us who think our country cannot make its way back from the brink of collapse. Don’t ever doubt that good leadership is all we need to fix our country’s countless.

For the rest of the population, all we can do now is cross our fingers and hope that in a few years time we will return to a safer country under the leadership of Griffith.

But this is not a job for law enforcers alone, so let us hope that other leaders from communities prone to crime will also rise up and encourage young people to work hard to achieve lives that are uplifting and positive and stay clear of living the lives of lawlessness and gangsterism.

STEVEN VALDEZ via e-mail