Pastor Bell's Words To Live By

The way we think will determine what we become. And the way we think is determined by the environment you are reared in and the people you associate with.  As a young man growing up in London in the late sixties/early seventies we never informed about going to college/university after leaving school. The most we were told to aspire to was getting a trade. So, many of my colleagues became plumbers, electricians, carpenters and so on without going on to university.   Like today they were more of our children and particularly our young men in institutions at her majesty pleasure than in higher education. It took a teacher from Grenada, Bernard Coard, who was pursuing further studies in England to alert the community to the fact that when our children were been sent to ‘special schools’ they were in fact being categorised as children with Special Educational Needs. And we were being categorised as SEN purely on the basis of the colour of our skin and nothing else. Sadly today there are many of our young people who fall foul of the system. However there are still many who are going on to university, obtaining degrees and taking up productive roles in society. The vast majority of those who are now prospering are those who have a faith or are from a faith background.  In his seminal book, “How The West Indian Child is being made Educationally Sub-Normal in the British Education System” Bernard Coard alerted the community of the failings of the education system. And although many of our people are aware of the failings, there are still a disproportionate number of our young men still being incarcerated at her majesty’s pleasure. How can our generation make things better? Perhaps we need to build schools, like our Jewish counterparts or ramp up the extra-curricular lessons to teach our young people how to navigate the current education system. Today let us ask the God of heaven for wisdom to be able to leave a legacy for those coming behind us so that the next generation can become the leaders of industry and the academics that they were destined to be. Read this one verse from Luke ch1:37.