KINGSTON, Jamaica — Dr Patricia Smith, who despite a desolate Jamaican childhood is now a successful entrepreneur and author in the United States (US), says she is driven by “sisu”— the Finnish word for inner strength and determination.

Dr Smith was speaking to ninth to 11th-grade students of the Jose Marti Technical High School who are currently pursuing business subjects.

Addressing the students, she shared her life journey including parental abandonment, physical and emotional abuse, homelessness and mental health struggles to a controlled and managed triumph which included establishing a successful medical health and home care support business, learning from and overcoming many setbacks in the process.

She recounted her experience selling plums on the streets of Spanish Town to survive and sleeping in the Spanish Town Market, grateful for the nights when she could feast from the remnants of a “table” set by the “Poco church” while living alone on the streets until her committal to State care, eventually getting a chance at high school due to the introduction of free education in the 1970s, before a fortunate trip to the US enabled her to pursue a nursing career there and the start of her business odyssey.

Dr Smith urged the students to work hard at their studies and not to lose focus by the many distractions of modern life or becoming overwhelmed by their personal situations.

Quizzed on her formula for success in business, she advised them to “start low and keep going up, do most of the work yourself and learn the business thoroughly before you hire any staff”.

Chairman of the Torpedo Loan Foundation, Rohan Silvera, which has adopted the school and implemented a programme of assistance to the business students geared towards enabling and encouraging business subject competencies and an entrepreneurial spirit among them, urged the students to take advantage of business opportunities such as reselling goods bought directly from producers or importers, then seeking markets in their communities and beyond, as well as providing needed services after doing background research.

Silvera, who was a past student of Jose Marti Technical High, noted that while not all of them might become prefects or other student leaders, they should find their own paths to success.

“You can become a prefect in your own right, your leadership will come later,” he said, noting that they should not focus on achieving perfection which was unattainable, but rather on continuous growth and development.

“Practise makes improvement…don’t expect perfection, just keep at it,” he urged, noting that they should always seek to ask God to help them become better persons. He pledged assistance from the foundation to those who could provide an outline of what kind of business activity they wanted to pursue.

The Torpedo Loan Foundation currently sponsors many children in underserved St Catherine communities through an arrangement that ensures that they have the financial means and supervision to attend school regularly, including lunch money, bus fares and school supplies.

The foundation has committed to sponsoring them for six years while monitoring their progress annually.

Among the qualifying conditions is that their parents or caregivers attend Parent Teacher Association (PTA) meetings regularly so that they can track their child’s performance and needs. Regular Church attendance is also encouraged, though not mandatory, and the foundation also helps to direct families in need to the Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH) so they can access additional assistance.