Region needs its people

AS Caribbean citizens, now is the time to focus on what we can do for our countries and not on what our countries can do for us.

We need patriots who can think, solve problems, combine heart and head, value people and do what needs to be done in the sustainable development interest of all the people in the countries.

This is the view of Managing Director of the Caribbean Centre for Excellence for Youth Entrepreneurship, Marcia Brandon. She highlighted the recent swearing in speech of the incoming Chancellor of the University of Trinidad & Tobago (UTT), which she described as timely and very apt.

“President Anthony Carmona noted that Trinidad and Tobago has been producing “yes” men and women far too long and spinelessness has become institutionalised.

“He told the people that citizens of that country needed to be patriots. He said logic and reason are in short supply and ‘it is men and women of status, rank and letters who have failed this country’. He said UTT was intended as a vehicle to produce innovators who could impact national development. He cited an urgent need to attract the private sector and teach students about employment.”

According Brandon, President Carmona asked rhetorically who failed that country and noted that it is not the men with cutlass or whacker, but rather the men of status, rank and letters. He urged people to use the investment which the country is making to help them to make a great shift from being mere citizens to that of patriots. “If men have talent but lack character, this breeds brilliant monsters,” Carmona said. “It is talent with character that produces world citizens.”

This address, Brandon said, is suited to the citizens of all the countries in this region. “Our treasuries are hurting, the coffers are low, jobs are scarce, the cost of living is high and our children, youth, women and men are in problems. We have to become entrepreneurial citizens.”

She challenged that the way sustainable development is looked at must be re-evaluated. “Sustainability everywhere equals sound leadership. Sound leadership requires sound, principled people. We need to show our people we value them as human beings and as assets.

“We must start helping our people to change their mindsets and behaviours so they can become problem solvers, critical thinkers, self-reliant and resilient, givers rather than takers. We need to stop institutionalising spinelessness and producing brilliant monsters,” she said. (JH)