Bo­bie-Lee Dixon

It was the new age au­thor Ralph Blum who said noth­ing is pre­des­tined: The ob­sta­cles of your past can be­come the gate­ways that lead to new be­gin­nings. In Floyd Solomon's case, this was true to form. At first glance, the bright-eyed, 36-year-old looks quite pol­ished and when he speaks he does so with au­thor­i­ty. His words are well-pro­nounced, clean and clear-cut, com­ing through a boom­ing dis­tinct voice he has used in voic­ing ads. He is now a man­ag­er at a telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny.But life was not al­ways peach­es and cream for Solomon. There were many hun­gry days, many sac­ri­fices and count­less lessons learned that sculpt­ed this for­mer Beetham Gar­dens res­i­dent in­to the gra­cious, com­pas­sion­ate man he is to­day.

When Solomon's fa­ther, Clyde Solomon Sr, died at 37 in a car ac­ci­dent while on his way to work, it im­me­di­ate­ly took a toll on the fam­i­ly as dad­dy, a steve­dore, was the sole bread­win­ner.Solomon's moth­er Jacque­line, a home­mak­er who had on­ly at­tained pri­ma­ry school lev­el ed­u­ca­tion, was left to put food on the ta­ble for Solomon and his old­er broth­ers Ri­car­do and Clyde Jr. She sur­vived most­ly on so­cial wel­fare, which bare­ly helped the fam­i­ly get by.Solomon said he on­ly re­al­ly be­came aware of their sit­u­a­tion when he was around eight."As a child grow­ing up be­fore the age of eight I did not re­alise that we were poor be­cause I had no oth­er lifestyle to com­pare ours to," Solomon said.He re­mem­bers hav­ing noth­ing but sug­ar wa­ter to drink many times. His eyes search­ing the cor­ners of his mind, he said, "It was like a sta­ple in our house."

They did not have three meals a day. There were no such "treats" like thriv­ing house­holds would nor­mal­ly have, such as peanut but­ter, jam, sausages or eggs."If we got any of that it was like a huge deal. It was Christ­mas come ear­ly," he joked.But through all their strug­gles, Solomon said his moth­er re­mained a pil­lar of strength with an un­wa­ver­ing faith."I re­mem­ber this one Christ­mas when there was so lit­tle on the ta­ble and I wished there was so much more, giv­en what I saw on the ta­bles of my friends' homes in the neigh­bour­hood. That is when my moth­er said to me it did not mat­ter what was on the ta­ble, rather who is at the ta­ble. In her ex­act words, 'We might not have what they have but we have a lot more in that we are at our ta­ble to­geth­er pray­ing; we are healthy and we love each oth­er...we have love'."

At that time his moth­er's re­solve did not make much sense to Solomon, but when he be­came a man he re­alised the seed his moth­er had plant­ed."She was teach­ing me that re­al wealth was not in hav­ing a lot of mon­ey, or a nice house, or even stocked cup­boards, rather it was about fam­i­ly, hu­mil­i­ty and grat­i­tude."The fa­ther of two said he was able to re­live that ex­pe­ri­ence through his eight-year-old son, Jaden, at a 2013 Christ­mas din­ner. Jaden had pre­vi­ous­ly been told the sto­ry and asked his fa­ther if he could get sug­ar wa­ter for din­ner in­stead of all the Christ­mas food fuss."He came to me and asked, 'Dad­dy, can we have sug­ar wa­ter tonight and pray to­geth­er, the way you and grand­ma used to?'" The mo­ment was a touch­ing one for Solomon and he knew there and then the seed his moth­er plant­ed years ago had in­deed man­i­fest­ed in the fullest of fruit.

Man­ag­ing an ed­u­ca­tion

Worn-out school clothes, emp­ty lunch kits and no school­books were Solomon's ex­pe­ri­ence at pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school. He re­mem­bers be­ing on the school feed­ing pro­gramme and tak­ing a bread and but­ter sand­wich to school. But no mat­ter the sit­u­a­tion, his moth­er al­ways en­sured he at­tend­ed school."From ear­ly my moth­er would al­ways in­still in us the val­ue of ed­u­ca­tion. 'Do your home­work and study be­fore you play,' she used to say. I sup­pose she saw ed­u­ca­tion be­ing the way to rise above the cir­cum­stances we were in."De­spite his sit­u­a­tion, Solomon ex­celled in his stud­ies and even leapfrogged from stan­dard three to five at Nel­son Street Boys' RC, Port-of-Spain.

He cred­it­ed his teach­ers� like Mr Mo­hammed, Sek­ou Ajene and Mr Beau­mont, who, once they had knowl­edge of his sit­u­a­tion at home, be­came in­volved and would bring him lunch to en­sure he had a sol­id meal to eat. Ajene was al­so in­stru­men­tal in help­ing Solomon de­vel­op his spir­i­tu­al­i­ty.With their sup­port, his moth­er's and that of some com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, Solomon wrote the then Com­mon En­trance ex­am and passed for his first choice Queen's Roy­al Col­lege.The achieve­ment was his­toric for his com­mu­ni­ty, as for 15 years no boy from Beetham Gar­dens had passed for a col­lege. He shared the mo­ment with an­oth­er res­i­dent Dami­an Weekes, who al­so passed for QRC."When the com­mu­ni­ty heard I passed for QRC, it was an in­stant cel­e­bra­tion be­cause many res­i­dents who knew of my aca­d­e­m­ic po­ten­tial thought I would have been zoned and sent to neigh­bour­ing schools like Suc­cess Laven­tille or Bel­mont Boys' Sec­ondary. Every­one was gen­uine­ly hap­py for me and many of them gave my moth­er and even me mon­ey and pledged to con­tribute to my books and sta­tion­ary for the new school term," Solomon re­lat­ed.

His teach­ers sub­se­quent­ly got to­geth­er and pur­chased all his books and uni­forms for his new school. Form one was one of on­ly two oc­ca­sions Solomon had all his books and uni­forms–the oth­er time be­ing form six.

His bat­tle with pover­ty con­tin­ued when his moth­er had an­oth­er child and his el­der broth­ers be­came in­el­i­gi­ble for so­cial wel­fare. Not want­i­ng to be­come a sta­tis­tic, Solomon de­ter­mined in his heart he would make it.He be­gan col­lect­ing beer bot­tles in the com­mu­ni­ty, which he sold at 25 cents a case to ven­dors. Af­ter school he worked at Kay Don­na Dri­ve In cin­e­ma in Curepe as a park­ing at­ten­dant. He al­so worked as a bar­tender when­ev­er spe­cial events were held there. He got home af­ter 10 pm most nights but still mus­tered the strength to do home­work and at least one hour study­ing.But try­ing to bal­ance his life as a school­boy by day and em­ploy­ee by night in­evitably took a toll on the then 16-year-old. Too tired to get up, he be­gan miss­ing school reg­u­lar­ly.

Solomon's teach­ers re­alised some­thing was go­ing on and the dean of dis­ci­pline, Lennard Hink­son, al­so his Span­ish teacher, in­ter­vened. "He picked up on my high ab­sen­teeism and called me to his of­fice to find out what was the prob­lem. I had nev­er told any­one about my fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion at home be­cause I did not want any­one to pity me. But that day I de­cid­ed to open up to Mr Hink­son about it. I dis­tinct­ly re­mem­ber his words,"Floyd, why didn't you say some­thing, we would have stepped in and helped you?"My ini­tial re­sponse was to ask him how. That is when I was in­formed of the school's fund which was set up for stu­dents who were fini­cal­ly chal­lenged. He al­so knew I was good at ac­count­ing so he asked me to do a bud­get that would cov­er all my ex­pens­es."

To his sur­prise, af­ter the talk he be­gan re­ceiv­ing free lunch­es from the school's cafe­te­ria and Hink­son pre­sent­ed two cheques to Solomon with the amount based on the bud­get he had done. The cheques cov­ered all Solomon's ex­pens­es and took him through both low­er and up­per form six.Elat­ed, he took the cheques home to his moth­er but she placed them back in his hands and told him to man­age it him­self. "I trust you. You did not come this far to mess up," she told Solomon.He sub­se­quent­ly at­tained sev­en pass­es at CXC and at GCE lev­el se­cured high grades in man­age­ment of busi­ness, ac­count­ing, Span­ish and gen­er­al pa­per.

En­ter­ing the­world of work

While still at­tend­ing QRC, Solomon got the op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­tern at the Unit Trust Cor­po­ra­tion (UTC) on the in­vi­ta­tion of its for­mer man­ag­er of ac­count­ing and fi­nance and ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, Michael Alexan­der. Alexan­der had met Solomon at a bas­ket­ball game."We played a game against Fa­ti­ma Col­lege and won. Af­ter the game Michael ap­proached me and spoke of him be­ing im­pressed with my lead­er­ship as the cap­tain. He then in­vit­ed the team to Har­vard's Sports Club to play an ex­hi­bi­tion game against their bas­ket­ball team."It was af­ter this game that he asked me if I would be in­ter­est­ed in join­ing the com­pa­ny's in­tern­ship pro­gramme. My im­me­di­ate re­sponse was yes."

Solomon be­gan work­ing part-time while com­plet­ing A lev­el stud­ies. It be­came a full-time job once he grad­u­at­ed. He was the lone provider in his home while al­so pay­ing his way through uni­ver­si­ty. He says that too was a huge ac­com­plish­ment for him, as some in his com­mu­ni­ty doubt­ed he would have got the job be­cause of the stig­ma as­so­ci­at­ed with peo­ple who came from mar­gin­alised com­mu­ni­ties like the Beetham Es­tate."They said that I was wast­ing my time and no one will hire some­body from the Beetham in a 'big of­fice'." They said I would just end up do­ing URP, re­main in the Beetham, and set­tle for a life and a fam­i­ly there.

"I can tell them now they were all wrong, be­cause where I grew up nev­er even mat­tered to my teach­ers or my job. All they saw was a young man who want­ed to be dif­fer­ent."Af­ter ex­it­ing UTC, he be­came a busi­ness de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer at the Na­tion­al En­tre­pre­neur­ship De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NED­CO), then on to Al­ston's Mar­ket­ing as a se­nior brand man­ag­er.When his broth­er Clyde Jr passed away in 2002 af­ter a car ac­ci­dent, it was a high­ly emo­tion­al time for Solomon. Strick­en with grief and the need to make his life more mean­ing­ful, Solomon drew clos­er to his spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and to God.This re­nais­sance made him re­alise his true pur­pose was to lead a fam­i­ly in the same way his moth­er had lead theirs; with the key in­gre­di­ents of in­tegri­ty, hu­mil­i­ty and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty. It was on this new jour­ney he met his wife Gayle, whom he says epit­o­mis­es all that his now de­ceased moth­er stood for."I could not be mar­ried to any­one else," he says with a smile.Ac­cept­ing Chris­tian­i­ty and liv­ing a life af­ter God has made Solomon ap­pre­ci­ate all the bless­ings he re­ceived and why his jour­ney be­gan the way it did.With his past be­hind, Solomon says: "My hum­ble be­gin­ning taught me how to have courage and faith. And I thank God that my suc­cess to­day was not by my own do­ing, but with the help of the many peo­ple God used to in­flu­ence my life, es­pe­cial­ly my dear moth­er."

Solomon now gives back to his beloved com­mu­ni­ty through the Massy Group's Boys to Men Men­tor­ship Pro­gramme and he al­so men­tors young men at his al­ma mater.

He left these words of ad­vice to young men in his for­mer cir­cum­stance: "Noth­ing that you are go­ing through is by chance or left to waste; every­thing has mean­ing and pur­pose and will even­tu­al­ly shape the men you will be­come one day. But it will all count for noth­ing if you don't take what you have learned and im­part it to oth­ers to en­rich their lives."