DESERVING OF SALUTE

We congratulate St Mary’s College’s (CIc) emerging as the champion team of the 2004 RBTT Young Leaders Debate.  We also note that the debating team from the Youth Training Centre Government School (YTC) which reached the finals and challenged CIC is deserving of salute. What should be noted is that one of the judges, Kim Morton, in announcing the result, described it as a close finish and commended both CIC and YTC not only for the quality of the debate but also on the issue of their information and research. It was a grand effort by St Mary’s College which won the RBTT/UNDP Champion Cup in the RBTT Young Leaders Debate for the second consecutive year.

The emphasis on the CIC and YTC teams’ information and research by Morton is instructive. Understandably, it would have been relatively easier for the College team to have accessed required information, whether from the college library, home libraries, newspapers, the Internet or through constant interacting with parents, teachers and classmates. To this, however, we must add their clear recognition of the need for personal commitment. The Youth Training Centre Government School team would have been able to access the Internet and their school library, but both would have had their limits, one in terms of availability, the other, one of relative quality. We wish to make it clear, however, that this facility of access in no way diminishes CIC’s victory over the YTC.

The subject of the debate, “Be it Resolved that Creative Leadership is the Key Requirement for the Peaceful Co-existence of Mankind,” demanded a critical approach and the St Mary’s team of David Thurton and Dominic Smith must be commended for their research and the points raised. And so too must the YTC team of Adrian Johnson and Javon Charles, whose positive arguments which somehow conveyed the position of personal belief, demonstrated that they were prepared to rise above being mere statistics in a correctional facility. Charles’ insistence that everyone was a leader in his/her own way, as we all have choices which could either be constructive or destructive, and Johnson’s point that a creative leader would possess the foresight and charisma to induce an individual wanting to resist suggested changes to see another perspective should be noted by the wider community.

The YTC Government School’s being part of the finals of the RBTT Young Leaders Debate represents an indication of the effort put in by the staff of the school and, generally speaking, of the Centre, and, hopefully, is an indication of the determination of many of the youths at the Centre to take advantage of the opportunities offered and forge ahead. Johnson and Charles and their achievement in the RBTT Young Leaders Debate is symbolic of a new direction and this would be a plus for the YTC and indeed the country. In addition, both the RBTT and the United Nations Development Programme should be commended for what must be seen as a contribution to the development of Trinidad and Tobago.