Activist shares troubled past with youth

Solwazi was one of the speakers in the Rio Claro Heritage Festival’s Youth Symposium. Other speakers were National Junior Badminton champion Travis Sinanan, National Scholarship recipient and medical student Sarah Mahabir and motivational speaker AP Toussaint. The symposium took place at the Nariva/ Mayaro office of the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and the Arts on September 10.

According to Solwazi, this was the first time he publicly shared details of his past, which included involvement in the illegal drug trade. “I have now accepted my past. For years I’ve been ashamed of it so much so that I changed my name and other things about myself,” he told the young audience.

Solwazi shared his experience of growing up in Belmont, being teased and taken advantage of due to his lack of athletic capability and penchant for “talking too much.” He said he was not only ridiculed by other children, but also adults. “I had a challenging childhood and because of that I grew comfortable with words like hate and kill,” said the 44-year-old.

And though he never resorted to murder, Solwazi did, at the age of 13, turn to recreational marijuana use and eventually became a street narcotics dealer. By the end of secondary school, he had only four basic subjects and did not see a bright future for himself.

Today, however, he holds an honours psychology degree from UWI and is a student in the post-graduate sociology programme. Through his work with various community organisations and the Citizens Security Programme, Solwazi has now dedicated his life to steering young people away from the same life of crime he once lived.

So how did he do it? Solwazi says that his life first transformed when he enrolled at Servol. “Servol is where my whole transformation started and where I started to really understand myself,” he said.

Witnessing the devastation of families and communities, also pushed Solwazi to change his lifestyle.

“My wife tells me I know a lot of dead people and I do. A lot of my friends have been killed and murdered and incarcerated for long periods. But I’ve always reflected on my life and tried to find another way.

“I wasn’t foolish. I saw families crushed by drugs and I didn’t want that. I wanted something better, but I did not know how to go about it. I didn’t know that there was something else than selling drugs because I had no passes and no skills to bargain with so I told myself that is all I had to do. I used to pray and ask God for something better because the street lifestyle is very superficial, it’s not real,” he added.

Solwazi pointed out that people working with youth need to give them options as opposed to simply telling them what not to do. In addition to prayer, Solwazi also found solace in writing and was inspired to found the Roots Foundation TT – an NGO centred on using spoken word as the catalyst for social change.

When asked by a member of the audience what advice he would give to his 16-year-old self, Solwazi replied: “I would say relax, the journey is bumpy, but you’ll get through it. I always wanted to change my past, but now I just go through it, because that’s how I ended up here today.” Although Solwazi shared few gritty details with the youth, so as not to glorify wrongdoings, he encouraged them to know their self-worth and always speak positively about their goals and dreams in order to make them reality.

The Rio Claro Heritage Festival continues until October 2.

For more info on Solwazi’s work with the ROOTs Foundation TT : www.cascadoo.wordpress.com