“Nev­er to give up on their goals, dreams and as­pi­ra­tions.”

A sim­ple, yet pow­er­ful mes­sage from Em­manuel Cal­len­der to the Stan­dard four and five stu­dents of Rose Hill Ro­man Catholic Pri­ma­ry School af­ter Phase Two of the trans­for­ma­tive “Who’s Writ­ing Your Sto­ry: Fear to Free­dom” pro­gramme on Au­gust 10.

The two-time Olympic medal­list was part of a dy­nam­ic cast as­sem­bled to in­spire the young minds priv­i­leged to be at the school, for the en­deav­our ti­tled “My Life Vi­sion,” which was ded­i­cat­ed to nur­tur­ing the stu­dents’ em­pow­er­ment and bol­ster­ing their re­silience in pur­suit of their fu­ture as­pi­ra­tions, while al­so of­fer­ing in­sights in­to var­i­ous pro­fes­sions.

“I have al­ways re­spond­ed when called up­on by the TTPS Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit as I be­lieve my sto­ry as a per­son/be­liev­er/ath­lete/Olympic cham­pi­on is a unique one. With a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to share my faith and be­lief in Je­sus Christ and what he has done for me,” said Cal­len­der at the event or­gan­ised by Janelle Se­bastien-Reyes.

She too de­liv­ered an in­spir­ing ad­dress, up­lift­ing the stu­dents and reaf­firm­ing their ca­pac­i­ty to achieve any­thing they set their minds to.

The day’s ac­tiv­i­ties al­so in­clud­ed a men­tor­ship work­shop which en­com­passed speed coach­ing; where­in par­tic­i­pat­ing stu­dents par­took in a se­ries of in­ti­mate group ses­sions with des­ig­nat­ed men­tors. The young­sters had the chance to in­ter­act with Jessie Mc Bar­row, a mind­set coach, au­thor, and en­tre­pre­neur; Ja­son Hospedales, an artist and art ed­u­ca­tor; Shani­qua Bas­combe, a na­tion­al track and field ath­lete; Niquisha Has­sette, a li­censed mas­sage ther­a­pist and busi­ness pro­pri­etor; Po­lice Con­sta­ble De­on Madeira; DFO Dave Isaac, 8801 Aux­il­iary Fire­fight­er Isa­iah Archibald and Callan­der, who shared words of en­cour­age­ment, ig­nit­ing mo­ti­va­tion among the stu­dents to­ward their path­ways to suc­cess.

“I first worked with the unit in 2012, lend­ing sup­port and word of en­cour­age­ment to their ado­les­cent’s sup­port group en­ti­tled ‘Rais­ing and Em­pow­er­ing Ado­les­cent Lives’. This was in the pro­gramme of the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion VW­SU. We jour­neyed with the chil­dren to YTC once and did week­ly sup­port ses­sions with them in Port-of-Spain,” said Cal­len­der, who won gold at the 2008 Bei­jing Olympics and sil­ver at the 2012 Lon­don Olympics in the 4x100 me­tres re­lay event with team­mates Richard Thomp­son, Marc Burns, Ke­ston Bled­man and Aaron Arm­strong.

“In 2023, the call was made to me again by Janelle Se­bastien-Reyes to share at their Men­tor­ship ses­sion of Who’s Writ­ing Your Sto­ry at the Rose Hill RC. It was a plea­sure yet again to be of ser­vice. Be­cause I un­der­stood what it is like...to have true men­tor­ship. I thank God for Bish­op Al­lan Mar­ryshow who guid­ed me on my jour­ney. And now I have a plat­form to keep kids in sports and off the streets like I once was,” said Cal­len­der, in re­lat­ing his own ex­pe­ri­ence to his young au­di­ence.

“Kids will al­ways re­mem­ber good pro­grammes like these with true lead­ers and pub­lic ser­vants of in­tegri­ty.

“You know we have a ‘jus­tice on time ser­vice’ but when is there go­ing to be a ‘Sport on Time’ sup­port ser­vice?” asked a pas­sion­ate Cal­len­der who ex­pressed his ho­n­our and great priv­i­lege to train with leg­endary sprint­er Ja­maican Us­ain Bolt and “run against the likes of him and Yohan Blake”.

“I shared with them Who I am, my ac­com­plish­ments, my strug­gles and the hard­ships I faced as a child grow­ing up in a com­mu­ni­ty with drugs and vi­o­lence; and the con­stant bat­tles of the pres­sures of life, peers and peo­ple in gen­er­al.”

Cal­len­der showed that he was quite re­lat­able to them as they were look­ing and lis­ten­ing to a sur­vivor of their present strug­gles.

“I en­cour­aged these youths by let­ting them know that they too will have to fight to as­pire to who they want to be in life,” said Cal­len­der ham­mer­ing the point to nev­er give up on their goals.

“There will be doubters and peo­ple in so­ci­ety who will try to de­ter and dis­tract them from their pur­pose but they must recog­nise all these are ob­sta­cles they must over­come. But to over­come they must put God first, trust him and be­lieve they can do things through Christ.”

Dr Char­lene Quam­i­na, Prin­ci­pal of Rose Hill RC Pri­ma­ry School, was ap­pre­cia­tive of the pro­gramme’s pro­found im­pact on the stu­dents’ self-es­teem and em­pow­er­ment.