Excelsior students say “No!” to drugs/violence

Crime and violence in Belize is often linked to the drug trade. Earlier this week I visited one Belize City school that’s taking on both issues at once.

Kamaal Nunez, Guidance Counsellor, Excelsior Junior High
“But to say that there is nobody in Excelsior using drugs, I won’t put my head on the block for that but at the same time by sensitizing we are hoping that they will make better decisions.”

Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
This week the eighty students at Excelsior Junior High are taking a break from their regular classes to stand up and to say “I am proud, I am strong and using drugs is wrong”.

Kamaal Nunez
“We have to bear in mind these students are a part of this community so they have interacted in someway or form with drugs. The Ministry of Education has a rule that if at anytime the management of any school suspects any student of being involved with drug use that they can recommend that a mandatory drug test be done.”

This is the third year that Excelsior has been involved in the anti drug campaign programme that is organized by the students’ guidance counsellor and retired police officer Kamaal Nunez.

Kamaal Nunez
“Most of the crimes that are occurring in Belize City we have found from the studies that we have done and the analysis we have done in the police department is what we could say is drug motivated because usually people need to get high to numb themselves in order to commit the violent and vicious crime that the are committing on a daily basis.”

With that reality in mind, today Nunez invited Sonia Myvette to talk about her son.

Three years ago, sixteen year old Ellion Augustine lost his life in road accident. Today Myvette shared her experience with the students in the hope that they will be careful in life.

Sonia Myvette, Co-Chairperson, Grieving Mother’s Association
“They were a set of jolly youths and they planned a trip and they were going on that trip went it happen.”

At the time of his death, Ellion Augustine was an active member of the Youth Advocacy Movement. Today his mother is co chairperson of the Grieving Mothers’ Association, an arm of the Yabra’s Citizens Group.

Sonia Myvette
“To share with the boys and girls that if they have not yet gotten caught up in the system that there is a way to avoid it right, so that’s our message this morning.”

Irwin X, President, Mothers Organized for Peace
“I really and truly believe, like your teacher who is present, to do good and to see good done and to help us become what we suppose to be and not another body for the grave or a next statistics for the police department.”

Vice president of Mothers Organized for Peace, Therese Felix, whose son Tyrone Felix was murdered, was also invited to tell her story.

Therese Felix, Vice president, Mothers Organized for Peace
“I di try them, the street side, the hang out part. Keep off of the street side because right now they come fi somebody and you noh know if they di come fi you. So I tell them if you have a yard, stay inside. It is easier fi stay inside than fi be pan di outside because we noh want see no next mother di go through weh we di go through.”

Over the school’s month long observance, guest speakers from Youth for the Future and the Police Community Unit have been invited to visit the students of Excelsior Junior High.