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Wednesday, July 16, 2025

19 men put down their guns

New be­gin­ning for some at Bel­mont's Life Sport

by

20140705

At least 19 men have put down their guns and joined Bel­mont's Life Sport cen­tre to turn their lives around.Con­fir­ma­tion came from the cen­tre's co-or­di­na­tor Mau­rice Au­guste on Thurs­day. Of 20 gun­men, Au­guste said, 19 have since moved on and no longer as­so­ciate them­selves with crim­i­nal el­e­ments and crime."On­ly one man could not give up the gun and he has gone back on the streets," Au­guste said."But the oth­ers have done well. They are now part of the so­lu­tion rather than the prob­lem."

Au­guste said this was the kind of im­pact the pro­gramme had been hav­ing on its par­tic­i­pants, de­spite the neg­a­tive pub­lic­i­ty it was fac­ing.Au­guste said, at first, the 19 par­tic­i­pants felt that the month­ly $1,500 stipend they were re­ceiv­ing was far less than what they made in a day as crim­i­nals.

"They were ac­cus­tomed to mak­ing fast mon­ey and the high life. This was their first wake-up call. I had to tell them it was not about the mon­ey, but about mak­ing a change–a change for the bet­ter. This is the best thing Min­is­ter of Sport Anil Roberts could have done for us.|"The suc­cess of this pro­gramme is es­sen­tial to save these young men from a life of crime and oth­er delin­quent be­hav­iours," he said.

Since grad­u­at­ing from the pro­gramme, Au­guste said, the men have held down jobs at su­per­mar­kets and se­cu­ri­ty firms and are now giv­ing back to so­ci­ety.

'It's a new be­gin­ning'

Be­fore join­ing Life Sport in 2012, An­ton Williams, 19, wast­ed his life away at home.His en­tire day was spent sleep­ing, watch­ing tele­vi­sion and hang­ing out with his friends.Un­able to land him­self a job af­ter grad­u­at­ing from Mal­ick Sec­ondary School with three CXC pass­es, Williams said, he was un­pro­duc­tive, lazy, and de­mo­ti­vat­ed.Pass­ing in front of the pro­gramme's Bel­mont cen­tre every day, Williams said, cu­rios­i­ty got the bet­ter of him.

"I just stopped by to see what was tak­ing place in­side and went in. I could not be­lieve that be­hind these walls there were sport­ing and ed­u­ca­tion­al ac­tiv­i­ties for young men."Since join­ing the pro­gramme, Williams has been tak­ing class­es in or­der to re­sit his O' lev­el maths ex­am­i­na­tion.He al­so found him­self a part-time job at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in 2013."I could not have asked for any­thing bet­ter. It has giv­en me a sec­ond chance...a new be­gin­ning."

Williams said the pro­gramme taught him "there is a so­lu­tion to every­thing and dis­agree­ments can be set­tled."

From hasty to friend­ly

Dwayne Mc Lean has been trans­formed from a "hasty" per­son to the most friend­ly in­di­vid­ual at Life Sport.Mc Lean ad­mit­ted that his at­ti­tude of­ten kept him back from so­cial­is­ing and in­ter­act­ing with oth­ers, but his sign­ing up with the Bel­mont pro­gramme has opened up a whole new world for him.A grad­u­ate of Bel­mont In­ter­me­di­ate School, Mc Lean wants to be­come a solid­er and de­fend his coun­try, but first has to ob­tain O'Lev­el maths, which he is now pur­su­ing.

The most valu­able les­son Mc Lean said he has learned from the pro­gramme was that of be­ing dis­ci­plined and in­ter­ac­tive.Mc Lean said his hasti­ness stemmed from grow­ing up in a sin­gle par­ent home.His fa­ther walked out on the fam­i­ly when he was a child."This made me hasty. I was al­ways ready to fly off the han­dle. My anger man­age­ment class­es taught me how to con­trol my tem­per."

Un­earthing new skills

Nkosi Williams joined Life Sport to be­come a pro­fes­sion­al bas­ket­ball play­er.As a par­tic­i­pant in the Hoop of Life ini­tia­tive, Williams felt he need­ed to hone his bas­ket­ball skills and so he reg­is­tered at the pro­gramme's Bel­mont of­fice.His pas­sion for the sport un­earthed one skill Williams nev­er knew he had, that of mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­ing.Williams said he al­ways saw him­self as "no­body" be­cause most of his day was spent "on the block do­ing noth­ing pro­duc­tive."

Many viewed him as a crim­i­nal be­cause of the peo­ple he as­so­ci­at­ed with at East Dry Riv­er, Port-of-Spain.Williams said he felt com­pelled to do some­thing pos­i­tive and signed up with the pro­gramme two years ago."One day I just start­ed speak­ing to the par­tic­i­pants, giv­ing them words of en­cour­age­ment and ad­vice and re­alised I was cap­tur­ing their at­ten­tion. I didn't know I had this hid­den tal­ent."

Even Williams' coach was blown away by Williams' words of in­spi­ra­tion.To­day, Williams said, when it comes to lec­tur­ing the par­tic­i­pants about right and wrong, he leads the way, while his coach would just lis­ten and smile.


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