Programme needed to boost self-esteem

THE EDITOR: I refer to the provision in the “Social and Economic Policy Framework 2004” in which COSTAATT suggests that the Government should “establish targeted recruitment programmes for male Trinidadians aged 17-24, especially Afro-Trinidadian males.” The COSTAATT suggestion is a very good one, its only fault is that it is drawn between too narrow parameters. All the suggestion has attracted is criticism and racial talk but no constructive ideas as to how the suggestion may be improved and then implemented. Firstly let us discuss the establishment of targeted recruitment programmes for male and female Trinidadians and Tobagonians aged 17-24 from all the ethnic groupings in TT. If we put a non-achiever into a tertiary class we may be wasting his/her time and our money as the non-achiever may not achieve anything and leave with a greater sense of frustration and failure. If a non-achiever does achieve something we may then have a qualified non-achiever, in the sense that he/she may have a degree but still lack self-confidence, self-esteem and a spirit of “can do” and “get up and go.”

In the American military, studies have shown that many recruits who enter military life suffer with a lack of self-confidence and poor self-esteem and programmes had to be devised to correct this deficiency even as the recruits trained to become soldiers. In the American navy — one slogan states “We don’t give a boy/girl a man’s/woman’s job — we make you into a man/woman then we give you the job.” There is a tough job ahead in dealing with under-achievers. Scientific studies suggest that from birth to the age of five our subconscious receives 50 percent of its programming. Between five and eight years of age we receive a further 30 percent of our programming. Thus by the age of eight our subconscious mind is already 80 percent programmed. And between eight and eighteen years of age we receive a further 15 percent of our programming. Thus by the age of eighteen our subconscious mind is 95 percent programmed. Poor, ignorant parenting across the entire societal spectrum especially from a child’s birth to eight years of age distorts and twists a child’s perception in areas of self-maturity, self-confidence, and self-esteem. We are bound by our perceptions. What psychologists refer to as the “bondage of the known.” The patterns of our perceptions shaped during our impressionable past are sometimes harder to break than the bars of a jail cell — nothing, nothing ever wipes out our childhood — old habits die hard.

A wounded body, properly tended, mends by itself without any exertion on the part of its owner — a wounded (misguided) psyche, by contrast heals (changes) only if the patient actively joins in the repair effort. Psychological analysis will work its cure only if the patient realises that something is wrong, wants badly to change and is convinced that a cure can be had. Because of the foregoing, recruitment of non-achievers will have to be accomplished by persuasion. It would have to be a government funded boarding programme where the participants will not be allowed to return home or to their neighbourhoods for at least eight months in order to break the chain of association with the conditions at home or in the neighbourhood. Added to that a tremendous psychological and psychiatric input will be needed for one on one and group counselling. Such a programme for non-achievers will not be a cheap nor an easy task and we have to expect that not all of the participants will make the grade.

JACK LEARMOND CRIQUI
New Yalta
Diego Martin