As we made final touches for the opening of the St John Bosco Vocational Training Centre in Hatfield, Manchester, last Wednesday, we received a call from the office of our guest speaker Prime Minister Andrew Holness that he would be delayed.

It had been a hard day for the prime minister. “I was delayed in arriving here because I had to deal with circumstances caused by some of our citizens who obviously did not go through this process [training] of treatment,” he shared. “Obviously they did not get the character-shaping and the moral standing and saw it as an easy endeavour to take the lives of six persons in my constituency over two days in an internecine gang war.”

He continued, “So I’m standing here today saying I need more John Boscos to be training and reaching out to those young minds who are being pulled into gangs and criminal activities…we need to pull them out of that, and if we had many more of these right across Jamaica maybe we would begin to see an impact on our youngsters who get pulled into these nefarious activities.”

Prime Minister Andrew Holness heartily commended the success stories of past student Damian Simpson and current student Kenroy Hyatt. Referring to the advice they received from Sister Susan Frazer, he noted: “After they’ve gone through this process they will take away if you fall behind run faster, work harder. They will take away that it is your ambition that will change your circumstances.”

As Prime Minister Holness toured the new facilities and met the students, his sombre mood lifted. He chatted and joked with the eager students, some attentively barbering, others in computer cubicles learning IT skills, and others being taken through the paces of good hospitality practice. It was as the Psalm says, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”

Marcia Tai Chun, the CEO of Sisters of Mercy Jamaica, which counts St John Bosco as one of its many islandwide institutions, spoke of the 48 years of leadership which Sister Susan Frazer had spent at St John Bosco. “Sister Susan is also a visionary,” she said. “In 1977, when she returned to Jamaica and to Bosco, she took on the task of trying to make St John Bosco self-sufficient in providing food for the 180 boys in residence.

“What started out with two pigs from Bodles being carried in the back of a van by two nuns [Sister Susan and Sister Noreen] has grown into a state-of-the-art piggery with 300 pigs; a retail outlet with the best pork and chicken products around, which is delivered to customers in Mandeville and Kingston; a 3,000-capacity chicken house; two greenhouses producing excellent produce; two catering halls; and the Falls restaurant and bar. All of these enterprises have two things in common: They are income-generating, but primarily they are training facilities.”

Indeed, the prime minister said he knew that Sister Susan was not only a great leader but a strong one because on his previous visit she had instructed him to remove his shoes before entering her greenhouse.

The Sisters of Mercy Jamaica honoured Digicel Foundation and patron Denis O’Brien with a plaque acknowledging their US$1-million donation to building projects at the Alpha Institute (formerly Alpha Boys School) and at St John Bosco.

Farewell, Queen Elizabeth II

There have been contrasting responses to the passing of Queen Elizabeth II as reflected in The Guardian article written by our former Poet Laureate Lorna Goodison. In it Goodison recalled, as a seven-year-old, reluctantly lining up with her schoolmates on King Street and waving the Union Jack as The Queen was driven through the streets. She wrote about our love, then, for things British, including Horlicks, a drink which our parents ensured we had daily.

“The prevailing wisdom was that everything of worth came from abroad and to most Jamaicans, at that time, abroad meant England,” she opined. “Even the sugar cane that Jamaicans cultivated under the most inhumane and brutal conditions was, in its final stages of production, sent to England to be finished into a snowy powder or shaped into neat, white cubes of refined sugar. To some, that might have been taken as a good metaphor for what a proper colonial subject should aim for.”

However, like most of us who grew up in that generation, Goodison was deeply touched when she received the news that she would be awarded The Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.

Goodison shared a joke with The Queen and wrote, “Honestly, I will never forget the free and girlish sound of how she laughed out loud at my seal story.” Anyone who knows Goodison will know she is a fantastic storyteller and I am glad The Queen got a taste of her humour.

So here we are arguing over the sins of colonialism and slavery yet misty over the passing of a lady who has been a part of our consciousness for decades. I appreciated that she spoke about her Christian faith in her Christmas message last year. All reports from the Jamaicans who interacted with her spoke of her kindness. May Queen Elizabeth rest in peace.

FAREWELL, PAULETTE RHODEN

I remember Paulette Rhoden running up and down National Arena the evenings before the opening of the Jamaica Manufacturers’ Association (JMA)-Jamaica Exporters’ Association (JEA) Expo in the 1980s, helping any exhibitor that needed assistance to make the deadline. We were all gobsmacked at the limitless energy of this dynamo.

When I mentioned her recent passing to a friend, she remarked, “That is the lady that gave my son’s school a big discount so they could get their football outfits.” Indeed, Paulette Rhoden was generosity personified and there are countless stories about her thoughtfulness.

She and her husband Maurice, who predeceased her, founded the Crimson Dawn garment manufacturing company 47 years ago, supplying school uniforms and sports gear. But Rhoden went beyond her own business to assist other manufacturers, serving on the JMA’s executive for over 30 years.

She passionately believed in manufacturing and in Jamaica’s potential to be self-reliant. In this column in March 2011, I described her as “that treasure of a Jamaican”, who shared her belief that we don’t have to go as far as Europe or the US to export our wonderful food as she pointed out that there is a market of 35 million, from Bermuda in the north to Suriname in the south, hankering for our excellent produce.

Jamaica has lost a great daughter. Our sympathy to her sons and other family members. May her beautiful soul rest in peace.

lowriechin@aim.com

www.lowrie-chin.blogspot.com