?I do not live in Laven­tille and there are those who will say that I am, there­fore, not qual­i­fied to com­ment on the plight of the peo­ple of that com­mu­ni­ty.

But I will com­ment nonethe­less, be­cause for some­time now I have had great em­pa­thy for my fel­low hu­man be­ings who have had to en­dure and are con­tin­u­ing to en­dure the mul­ti­ple chal­lenges of phys­i­cal and so­cial vi­o­lence, un­em­ploy­ment and un­der­em­ploy­ment and un­der-ed­u­ca­tion. Per­haps my em­pa­thy has to do with the com­bi­na­tion of my own hum­ble be­gin­nings and my more re­cent ex­pe­ri­ence of the town­ships of South Africa. This em­pa­thy comes to the fore when I hear the wails of a moth­er or wife who has just lost a son or hus­band in a hail of bul­lets. "He was a good boy." "He was a lov­ing hus­band." "I don't un­der­stand why they have to kill him." And on the oth­er side I hear the com­ments of peo­ple of the wider com­mu­ni­ty of T&T: "What she talk­ing about–dey too bad." "Let them kill out each oth­er." And the sit­u­a­tion con­tin­ues with al­most dai­ly re­ports of mur­ders and oth­er forms of ex­treme vi­o­lence–be­lieved to be the out­come of the well-es­tab­lished cul­ture of gang war­fare in the Laven­tille com­mu­ni­ty and sur­round­ing ar­eas.

I am sure that the peo­ple of Laven­tille sense, feel and un­der­stand their hu­man­i­ty in­tu­itive­ly. They know that they have a po­ten­tial that is no dif­fer­ent from that of the hu­man be­ings who live in St Clair, Val­sayn and West­moor­ings. They know that their lives can have great­ness. I am sure that they have a deep de­sire to be good and to live ful­filled lives. Laven­til­lians know that there is beau­ty in their own lives. They can see and feel the good­ness in their chil­dren, wives, hus­bands, fa­thers, moth­ers, boyfriends and girl­friends. They know that they are ca­pa­ble of ex­press­ing love, care and com­pas­sion like oth­er hu­man be­ings. Great artists, sci­en­tists, mu­si­cians, ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, so­ca stars, en­gi­neers, crafts­men, bi­ol­o­gists, chefs, econ­o­mists, med­ical doc­tors, de­sign­ers, teach­ers, soc­cer play­ers and crick­eters have emerged from among the peo­ple of Laven­tille. It is their cre­ative ge­nius that gave the world the steel pan. I be­lieve that there is much more of this cre­ative po­ten­tial trapped and cry­ing out to be re­leased. How­ev­er, most of this po­ten­tial is frus­trat­ed–trapped in a vi­o­lent ur­ban and cul­tur­al prison with walls that are slow­ly clos­ing in. The re­sult is the on­go­ing pan­ic, fear, ag­gres­sion and an­ti-so­cial be­hav­iour that keep the com­mu­ni­ty in the na­tion­al spot­light. Liv­ing in Laven­tille has to be hell for many–a prison with­out walls ac­cul­tur­at­ing its un­will­ing pris­on­ers to think in bi­ased ways, thus prop­a­gat­ing the anger, fear, ha­tred and seem­ing­ly un­end­ing cir­cle of vi­o­lence.

For many there is a need to es­cape–and for some, to es­cape and nev­er to re­turn. In­deed, even the icon­ic cul­tur­al and cre­ative show­piece of Laven­tille, the Des­per­a­does Steel Or­ches­tra, seems to be seek­ing an es­cape route. Laven­til­lians, like all oth­er Trinida­di­ans, want to be peo­ple–peo­ple with dreams, de­sires and as­pi­ra­tions to be ful­filled. Like most of us, they want to sense and feel their hu­man dig­ni­ty. In Laven­tille there seems to be an empti­ness aris­ing from un­ful­filled ex­pec­ta­tions. There is a huge hole that is cry­ing out to be filled. There is help­less­ness and there is a blind­ness among many. They want bet­ter, but feel encaged in dark­ness and thus vul­ner­a­ble to the many self­ish pow­er bro­kers and gang lead­ers in their midst. And in the dark­ness, the young peo­ple are be­ing led in di­rec­tions that they don't re­al­ly want to go–to gangs and the re­sult­ing gang war­fare. Para­dox­i­cal­ly, many join gangs for their own se­cu­ri­ty–false­ly think­ing that they have a bet­ter chance of sur­vival. The vi­o­lence is re­al­ly a cry for help! It is a crude at­tempt to fill the ever-ex­pand­ing hole of de­spair and hope­less­ness. And sad­ly, many in the wider na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty con­tin­ue to cry out: "Ar­rest them!" "Jail them!" "Kill them!" "More po­lice!" "Bring out the army!" Yet the prob­lem con­tin­ues and the hole gets deep­er.

Much more is need­ed than just re­strain­ing the neg­a­tive be­hav­iours–curb­ing the vi­o­lence. Al­though nec­es­sary, polic­ing alone is not good enough. It is not solv­ing the prob­lem. The peo­ple of Laven­tille need to recog­nise that they have the pow­er to dis­cov­er and grow the pos­i­tives in them­selves. We need to help them to re­mem­ber that they are beau­ti­ful and good at heart; that they are cre­ative; that they have dig­ni­ty; that they can achieve great things; that they don't have to feel trapped and that they don't have to walk in­to new pris­ons over and over. They must know that they can break their de­pen­den­cy and take charge of their lives. We need to help them to un­der­stand that pos­i­tive change is pos­si­ble. They must be re­mind­ed that they too can be peo­ple, that there is life to be en­joyed, that they are gen­uine mem­bers of the broth­er­hood of hu­man­i­ty and that they have great rea­sons to be alive. We have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to fu­el a sense of hope. Deep down peo­ple want to live for more than sat­is­fy­ing the raw sen­su­al plea­sures and emo­tions! They want to thrive, not just sur­vive. What will it take to bring the change? I be­lieve that true change will on­ly come when the peo­ple them­selves ac­cept greater re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their own lives and grow their self-dis­ci­pline. Change must be ini­ti­at­ed from with­in be­fore those on the out­side can help. The peo­ple of Laven­tille must there­fore be more self-em­pow­ered and self-dis­ci­plined.

I am con­vinced that Laven­tille can­not be "fixed" by those on the out­side. We are all aware of the re­sis­tance of the com­mu­ni­ty to the many well-in­ten­tioned de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives of var­i­ous gov­ern­ment min­istries, the po­lice, the army, var­i­ous re­li­gious groups, var­i­ous in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions and a mis­cel­lany of lo­cal ser­vice or­gan­i­sa­tions. Most of these ini­tia­tives seem to with­er and die ear­ly, while oth­ers play nois­i­ly around the pe­riph­ery while the fires con­tin­ue to rage at the cen­tre. Laven­tille has to be fixed from the in­side, by Laven­til­lians. The com­mu­ni­ty is cry­ing out for the ap­pro­pri­ate lead­er­ship to emerge from with­in–lead­er­ship which can har­ness and co­a­lesce the good­ness that lies in the hearts of its peo­ple. There is need for a phi­los­o­phy of true self-em­pow­er­ment–a phi­los­o­phy that pro­motes hope and promise. The peo­ple of Laven­tille must know that they have a fu­ture, in spite of how the rest of so­ci­ety sees them. They must know that they can in­di­vid­u­al­ly and col­lec­tive­ly bring change to their lives. They must es­cape the well-en­trenched cul­ture of de­pen­den­cy–wait­ing on oth­ers to solve their prob­lems. URP and Cepep are nec­es­sary make-work pro­grammes. How­ev­er, in time, the jobs and con­tracts of URP and Cepep have mor­phed in­to be­com­ing the new spoils of the gang war­fare. As the spoils get big­ger and the prob­lem deep­ens. But, in terms of hu­man de­vel­op­ment, noth­ing of re­al per­ma­nence will be cre­at­ed if the mind-set re­mains un­changed.

These pro­grammes should not be seen as a long-term so­lu­tion to in­di­vid­ual and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment. At best, they must be seen on­ly as step­ping stones. The more peo­ple are de­pen­dent on oth­ers, the more oth­ers will ex­ploit them–and the peo­ple of Laven­tille have had a long his­to­ry of be­ing ex­ploit­ed. We have to help the peo­ple to find their free­dom. But in the end they have to do it them­selves. They must com­mit to grow­ing their self-dis­ci­pline. They must take charge of their lives if they are to free the vast hu­man po­ten­tial that ex­ists in their midst. I live in hope.

?THEO FER­GU­SON

Lead­er­ship ed­u­ca­tor