‘Redouble efforts to look after children’, – principal

In the wake of last Friday’s stabbing death of 16-year-old Frederick Smith Secondary School student Temario Holder, a high school principal has called on adults to redouble their efforts to keep children on a path away from violent confrontation.

Principal of the Deighton Griffith Secondary School, Anthony Alleyne, said: “There can never be a good day when we have the type of incident we had last week.

“It also makes me feel that as adults we have to redouble our efforts to do the best we can for these young people to show them that there is a better way.

“It does not only apply to those within the schools, but also within agencies, the community, and the churches, because at the end of the day it is about our children, regardless of how we got here and who we think is to blame.”

His comments were a sobering note on his school’s old scholars victory in the Bragging Rights football competition with the presentation to the school of five computers, two scholarships from the Barbados Institute of Management and Productivity (BIMAP), gear for its football teams, a voucher from Harris Paints, and a water cooler.

Principal Alleyne commended Bragging Rights Inc. for giving back to the school and told the students: “One of the major initiatives we have pushed recently is the notion of giving back, voluntarism, working with your communities to help you.

“We see our old scholars as part of the Deighton Griffith Village helping to raise you, and we welcome them, and we look forward to receiving these items with the humility it deserves and we hope that you  put them to use in the way you should.”

Bragging Rights Inc. Committee member, O’Brien Smith, said the competition was in its tenth year and had grown tremendously over that time.

He said: “It started in 2009 as a one-off game
between the old scholars of the Alexandra School and Coleridge and Parry, then it blossomed into the contest we have now.

“The teams that finish in first, second and third places get prizes that go to the schools. We pay for the field, the lighting, the officials and that sort of thing but sponsors really come on board and give us tremendous support in terms of the prizes.