Pas­tor Clive Dot­tin

"To pro­vide a car­ing en­vi­ron­ment in which all stu­dents and staff can de­vel­op them­selves through en­rich­ing ex­pe­ri­ences so as to be­come ca­pa­ble and ef­fec­tive mem­bers of their own com­mu­ni­ties with a love for learn­ing and the abil­i­ty to be self-suf­fi­cient so as to live pro­duc­tive lives in this cen­tu­ry."

-Mis­sion State­ment of Debe High School

Joshua Be­deau dis­played quin­tes­sen­tial class when he per­formed at the Debe High School grad­u­a­tion on Fri­day. It was a re­flec­tion of the dig­ni­ty and ex­tra-or­di­nary qual­i­ty of this cer­e­mo­ny. Joshua played the pan so­lo with con­fi­dence and ex­cep­tion­al skill. Debe High School rep­re­sents the fu­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Dif­fer­ent eth­nic groups demon­strate the pow­er of di­ver­si­ty, es­pe­cial­ly when there is mu­tu­al re- spect. The prin­ci­pal, Ra­mon Gun­ness, en­forces sound dis­ci­pline and the choice of awards pro­vides in­spi­ra­tion. I would like to high­light those stu­dents who re­ceived the Gen­er­al Pro­fi­cien­cy Award for the pe­ri­od 2009-2010: Kedar Per­rot, Patrice Lawrence, Elise Khan, So­rayah Jit­ta, She­vaughn Smith, Kale­sia Har­ryper­sad, Di­vya Mehta, De­vani Ra­jen- dra, Jill-Marie Fer­gu­son, Em­ma Jim­dar, Mis­il­la How­ell-Paul, Michael O'Con­nor II, Ner­is­sa Sa­hadeo. Now I shall give you part of the grad­u­a­tion ad­dress which I de­liv­ered to the stu­dents: Stu­dents of Debe High, you should be ex­treme­ly proud of your amaz­ing achieve­ments. Your prin­ci­pal and staff must be con­grat­u­lat­ed. This is a sig­na­ture mo­ment for you and there­fore you must be pre­pared to move to the next lev­el. Al­ways dis­play an at­ti­tude of grat­i­tude. Re­mem­ber to ac­knowl­edge God. He de­signed you to be a suc­cess, an ex­cep­tion­al suc­cess.

Do not be dis­tract­ed as you pro­ceed on life's jour­ney. Many youth have cho­sen to be­come slaves to drugs, gam­bling, pros­ti­tu­tion and pornog­ra­phy. They al­low their so-called friends to in­flu­ence and per­suade them to get in­volved in de­struc­tive prac­tices. They are rude and crude, re­bel­lious and dis­re­spect their par­ents, teach­ers and coun­sel­lors. Se­lect your com­pan­ions with care. I wish to re­mind you that with drugs you have the flash, the splash and the crash. You start high and end up dry. Life is about choic­es and mem­o­ries. There­fore, if you make great choic­es, you will have great mem­o­ries. But if you make poor choic­es, you will have poor mem­o­ries. You must have a dream, a sparkling vi­sion that cap­tures your imag­i­na­tion and dri­ves you to pur­sue suc­cess re­lent­less­ly. Give no­body the per­mis­sion to rape your self-es­teem, to dis­cour­age you, to place you on the path of de­struc­tion and de­pres­sion. Dr Ben Car­son, in­ter­na­tion­al­ly ac­claimed pae­di­atric neu­ro­sur­geon, was not al­ways a stun­ning suc­cess. In fact, he was a fail­ure, and came last in class, un­til his moth­er per­formed a spe­cial act of in­ter­ven­tion. She was the vic­tim of abuse by her hus­band who was an al­co­holic. Sonya Car­son be­came a sin­gle par­ent and she pro­ceed­ed to es­tab­lish bound­aries and com­mand­ed re­spect from her chil­dren.

She told Ben that he must read, read, read. In fact, she told him that "it was by read­ing that one has an en­counter with great minds." Ben was fu­ri­ous when his moth­er re­duced his play­ing time, and TV-watch­ing time. But his moth­er stood firm. Let me in­di­cate to par­ents that God ex­pects you to man­age your chil­dren and to be pos­i­tive, dy­nam­ic role mod­els. If there is to be dis­ci­pline in the home, there must be clear­ly es­tab­lished rules. Dear stu­dents, have you heard about the fol­low­ing out­stand­ing ju­niors and teenagers: Paula and Pe­ter Imafi­don, Akrit Jasw­al, Hou Yi­fan, Nick Vu­ji­cic? Paula and Pe­ter Imafi­don are young math­e­mat­i­cal ge­nius­es. These Afro-British stu­dents shocked aca­d­e­mics when they ex­celled in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge's ad­vanced math­e­mat­ics ex­am. They are the youngest stu­dents to ever pass the test. Their par­ents moved from Nige­ria to Britain where they have lived for the past 30 years. They al­ready have dreams. Paula wants to be­come a math­e­mat­ics teacher and Pe­ter wants to be­come the Prime Min­is­ter. They are twins and just nine!

Grad­u­ates, you must have a dream on your screen; God has a mis­sion for your life and he has pro­vid­ed the re­sources to en­sure that you will be a fan­tas­tic suc­cess. Now we have to move to "med­ical boy won­der" from In­dia, Akrit Jasw­al. He is just 17, and is ac­knowl­edged as the world's youngest doc­tor, though he has nev­er at­tend­ed med­ical school. He per­formed his first sur­gi­cal op­er­a­tion at the age of sev­en. He has a dream-he is work­ing on a cure for can­cer and Aids. He has al­ready de­vel­oped "a con­cept called oral gene ther­a­py on the ba­sis of his re­search and the­o­ries." This in­for­ma­tion is re­port­ed in the doc­tors' gallery-Con­nect­ing Doc­tors and Pa­tients: "Akrit de­vel­oped a pas­sion for sci­ence and anato­my at an ear­ly age. Doc­tors at lo­cal hos­pi­tals took no­tice and start­ed al­low­ing him to ob­serve surg­eries when he was six years old. In­spired by what he saw, Akrit read every­thing he could on the top­ic. When an im­pov­er­ished fam­i­ly heard about his amaz­ing abil­i­ties, they asked if he would op­er­ate on their daugh­ter for free. Her surgery was a suc­cess. "Af­ter the surgery, Akrit was hailed as a med­ical ge­nius in In­dia. Neigh­bours and strangers flocked to him for ad­vice and treat­ment. At age 11, Akrit was ad­mit­ted to Pun­jab Uni­ver­si­ty. He's the youngest stu­dent ever to at­tend an In­di­an uni­ver­si­ty. That same year, he was al­so in­vit­ed to Lon­don's famed Im­pe­r­i­al Col­lege to ex­change ideas with sci­en­tists on the cut­ting edge of med­ical re­search."

Hou Yi­fan al­so proves the pow­er of a dream. This Chi­nese su­per­star be­came the youngest world chess cham­pi­on in his­to­ry by win­ning the women's World Cham­pi­onship in Hatay, Turkey, at the age of 16. In Jan­u­ary, she was recog­nised as the best sports-per­son of the year in Chi­na. She un­der­stands the pow­er of a dream, an ex­pand­ing dream. Hav­ing ac­com­plished so much at so ear­ly a stage in her life, she con­tin­ues to dream. She wants to be a pro­fes­sion­al chess play­er or study to be a doc­tor. She has seized the op­por­tu­ni­ties that have been pre­sent­ed to her. Dear youth, you must be pre­pared to seize the op­por­tu­ni­ties when they ar­rive. But you must plan to work dili­gent­ly and sac­ri­fi­cial­ly to ac­com­plish your dreams. Do not for­get the spir­i­tu­al com­po­nent, be­cause it is God who has the best plan for your life.