There are two events that happened over the last week which made me even more proud to be Jamaican than I was before. As a matter of fact, I have been strutting around all day at work making sure everybody hears the Jamaican accent.

The first is related to the launch and inaugural meeting of the Caribbean Commission on Youth Development in Paramaribo, Suriname, on March 5 - 7 under the theme, "Moving on with the Youth Development Agenda".

Throughout the three-day meeting I observed Caribbean youth between the ages of 18 - 24 lucidly articulating their vision of a more safe and secure Caribbean environment; positing evidence-based approaches and strategies to reducing risk and vulnerability factors among youth and exploring ways young people can maximise the benefits of the Caricom Single Market and Economy, and I was confident that the future of the Caribbean Community would be in competent and safe hands if these boys and girls were to ever maintain the reins of leadership. Two of them were Jamaican - Terriann Gilbert-Roberts and Tamian Beckford.

But the young man of whom I was most proud is "Ward of the State" and current sixth-form student of Meadowbrook High School, Tamian Beckford who is also youth adviser to the UNFPA and president of the National Secondary Students Council.

Perhaps because of his early exposure to the harsh realities of being an orphan, growing up on the streets of Kingston with responsibilities for other siblings, Tamian was better able to articulate the feelings, needs, and vulnerabilities of many Caribbean youth, and he did so in an awe-inspiring manner, captivating his audience and inducing overwhelming tears of pride in me.

All his presentations - he made a few - were well researched and coherently presented - not only that, but Tamian exuded the aplomb and confidence of one born into a more secure and affluent environment, yet he is not from any such environment. He was taken off the streets by the government because he was too young to be incarcerated.

Something tells me that his school, as well as the young man's tenacity and intrinsic motivation to succeed, is contributing significantly to his progress, and trust me he has a promising future.

Pardon my sermonising, but there are many lessons to be learnt from this young man's experiences (I hope I get the chance to tell his full story some day). One can rise above one's circumstances, but some of us may need a little push-start in the right direction or be given a choice for a second chance. What one does with the second chance is all up to him or her.

Tamian viewed his experiences of growing up in a children's home as an opportunity to "mek something gwaan fi him". Others in a similar situation might have cursed their luck and robbed and plundered society for owing them something, because "nutten nah gwaan fi dem".

I am an ardent believer in the education system of our country and I do subscribe to the notion that schools can and should play that surrogate mother and father role to the many Jamaican children whose parents have either wittingly or unwittingly abandoned them; that education should bring about the psychological transformation about which Michael Manley wrote in his Politics of Change and that if it does not or cannot, then school would have failed our children. But I also believe that every child should have that intrinsic motivation that compels him or her to rise above circumstances.

There are many more Tamian Beckfords on the streets of Jamaica who can be rescued if we care a little bit more and are less hasty to make political speeches that write them off as "irredeemable". Tamian Beckford made me proud to be Jamaican.

Secondly, I watched the opening ceremony of the ICC Cricket World Cup in the comfort of my hotel room with welling pride and with the exception of two hitches (Paula and Paul didn't seem to be working too well together with the OB and the fireworks were ill-timed by a few seconds - they went off right in the middle of Brian Lara's presentation), we pulled off a fantastic well-choreographed show for an international audience.
Well done, Jamaica! I am proud to be Jamaican and I love my little island!

Dorrett Campbell writes from Georgetown, Guyana

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