High school pageant promotes peace
The latest crime wave is threatening to flood Belize City’s streets in blood. But one group of young people have come together to offer a lifeboat to their peers. News Five’s Marion Ali explains.
Marion Ali, Reporting
Pageants are the unofficial Belizean past time but one such event scheduled for tonight is organised to communicate a very important message.
Carolyn Williams-Tillett, Principal, St. Michael’s College
“The pageant is advocacy. We’re advocating for peace, we’re advocating for young people to start talking because, for example, one of the things we find is that many of them cannot express themselves. You might find deviant behaviour in the classroom that may be the result of somebody not being able to express how he or she feels and we feel that this very strongly contributes to people lashing out with violence against somebody else, assaulting somebody else.”
St. Michael’s College was established eight years ago with a mission to give underprivileged youths a chance at getting an education and relinquishing the street life. The institution has been making steady strides but the increased crime rate has prompted these youths and their teachers to go an extra mile.
Deborah Martin, Coordinator, Mr and Miss St. Michael’s College
“We at St. Michael’s College have suffered a lot of losses. The most recent one was with Deandra Zetina at the Putt-Putt Bar and because of that we saw it fitting to address this issue in our pageant tonight. So it is significant because we hope to promote among other youths in the society to talk before they act, talk it out, trash it out before they resort to violence.”
The student body is three hundred strong and they’ve decided the best way to protest violence is to take the stage.
This morning, the eight male and female contestants prayed as they prepared to rehearse their presentations at the Bliss Centre for the Performing Arts. Third form student, Justin Gill, said while he initially hesitated, it was more important to get across the underlying message.
Justin Gill, Participant, Mr St. Michael’s College
“Well yoh hear wah lot ah stuff bout di pageant da only fi females but I think with this situation and the time that we’re in right now, it is a time that we take males should take part in an event like this. And it’s not only women that are getting beat and killed out here but also young males. My talent will reflect a lot about what is happening out on the street but more on domestic violence, men beating their women. And I think that needs to stop.”
Shenique Gentle, Participant, St. Michael’s College
“I hope that the Belizeans all come together and do something about stopping this violence in our community.”
Marion Ali
“When you get upset how do you control that anger?”
Shenique Gentle
“Well to avoid problems I just walk away from the situation, go in a separate corner and just meditate and don’t worry about whatever happened.”
Marion Ali
“So you divert that energy in a positive…”
Shenique Gentle
“Positive way, yes.”
The students felt the impact of deadly violence on February ninth when a promising fourth form student’s life was cut short by a bullet as she worked as a bartender at a popular nightspot.
Carolyn Williams-Tillett, Principal, St. Michael’s College
“Our students are focusing on this because we’ve been touched personally by violence with the death of Deandra. Education is an extremely important issue and important and parents feel it’s an important item as well, so the school itself opens up and we don’t use a P.S.E. grade to say that a student is not going to be accepted into St. Michael’s. We feel that this is one of the key ways that we can keep children off the street. I think that was one of the original intentions of the school when it was created.”
But although Zetina is gone, her death was one of the main influences of tonight’s event and as we found out, her belief of getting an education lives on in her fellow students.
Tishawn Sabal, Participant, Mr and Miss St. Michael’s College
“Well yoh know education important because then without yoh education yoh noh have nothing eena life. So education dad weh yoh need, education da weh you’d seh dah the part weh play di biggest role eena yoh life, education. Yoh need fi have education fi have understanding, fi have patience soh you could kip weh from violence.”
But aside from advocating against violence, Principal Tillett says the school also takes stringent measures prevent violence on campus.
Carolyn Williams-Tillett
“We do random searches every so often and we’ve never found a weapon since I’ve been here. This is my second year and we’ve never found a weapon with a student during our random searches but we do a lot of advocacy. We talk a lot about it and we urge the teachers to talk about it to be able to make them more aware and to allow them to find a place for themselves and to see a future because if students are going to be involved in gang activity and violence and so on they don’t see themselves being alive five years or ten years down the road.”
Tillett says the school also provides students who display good behaviour with incentives to stay out of trouble. Prizes for tonight’s pageant include scholarships, cash and miscellaneous prizes. Reporting for News Five, Marion Ali.
The theme for tonight’s pageant is Good Communication is the Key, Violence is not the Way. The event starts at seven tonight and tickets are ten dollars each.
