Pas­tor Clive Dot­tin

It is a tremen­dous priv­i­lege to be the guest speak­er at a school that be­lieves not just in the ap­pre­ci­a­tion of ex­cel­lence but in the pur­suit of ex­cel­lence. Whether it is recog­nised or not, Wa­ter­loo Sec­ondary School is an ex­cel­lent ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tion. You are guid­ed by an ex­cel­lent prin­ci­pal and staff and you have an ex­cel­lent vi­sion. A vi­sion can be de­scribed as the plan for your life, the sum to­tal of your de­sires, the pic­ture of the pin­na­cle of your achieve­ments. The mis­sion can be de­scribed as the ap­pli­ca­tion of your suc­cess, the max­imis­ing of your abil­i­ties trans­lat­ed in­to ser­vice in your com­mu­ni­ty. Toyn­bee de­fines this process as "the ide­al that takes the imag­i­na­tion by storm and the plan of ac­tion to achieve the ide­al." You are not just an in­sti­tu­tion that be­lieves in ex­cel­lence, you are a young in­sti­tu­tion. You be­gan in 2000, and now you can be jus­ti­fi­ably proud of the gains you have made dur­ing the pe­ri­od 2000-2009.

You cer­tain­ly have a vi­sion on your screen. You ob­tained two CAPE schol­ar­ships this year and five last year. It is clear to all who wish to see that you be­lieve in the process of in­te­grat­ed de­vel­op­ment: the head, the heart and hand. Con­grat­u­la­tions to Bran­don Mo­hammed and Shiv­ani Ram­barak–the two CAPE schol­ar­ship win­ners for 2009. This year, you placed sec­ond in the RBTT Young Lead­ers Com­pe­ti­tion. Of the 101 stu­dents who wrote the CSEC O-Lev­el ex­am­i­na­tions, 56.4 per cent re­ceived full cer­tifi­cates. The fol­low­ing stu­dents per­formed with dis­tinc­tion: Bran­don Bod­den, Jessy Dook­wah, Shali­ni Ram­per­sad, Adeni Nar­i­nesingh, and Shan­ice Ramdeen. Dear stu­dents, to ac­tu­alise the vi­sion on your screen, you must se­lect out­stand­ing role mod­els.

We have ap­plaud­ed our So­ca War­riors in the foot­ball are­na but now we have our crick­et­ing am­bas­sadors who placed sec­ond in the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed Air­tel In­di­an Pre­mier League. They si­lenced their crit­ics and showed that they had a shared vi­sion. Let us fo­cus on the il­lus­tri­ous cap­tain, Daren Gan­ga. He is more than a cap­tain, he is a role mod­el. When you have a leader who is a role mod­el, then you can have great ex­pec­ta­tions. Daren un­der­stands the pow­er and in­flu­ence wield­ed by sport­ing and en­ter­tain­ment he­roes. Many of our great ath­letes fail to grasp and con­cep­tu­alise the in­flu­ence they ex­ert on young, im­pres­sion­able minds. Daren has a vi­sion on his screen. Young peo­ple must be en­cour­aged to be vi­sion­ar­ies and the ad­min­is­tra­tion of Wa­ter­loo Sec­ond- ary School un­der­stands this sa-lient fact. Your prin­ci­pal, Ray­mond Ju­rawan, leads by ex­am­ple and the suc­cess virus has spread through­out the school.

An­oth­er out­stand­ing role mod­el is Veera Bha­jan, who was born with­out arms, and yet she has com­plet­ed her law de­gree and will cer­tain­ly be a star at the UWI grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny card­ed for this week­end. She is a mag­nif­i­cent source of in­spi­ra­tion, a tow­er of strength and by God's grace has con­vert­ed tri­als and tribu­la­tion in­to tri­umph. While the swirling tide of ude­cot­ti­cal bac­cha­na­lia, mixed with ram­pant promis­cu­ity in a reck­less youth sub­cul­ture that is threat­en­ing our peace and se­cu­ri­ty, you must con­tin­ue to stand tall and there­fore you need a vi­sion on your screen. I have said it be­fore and I shall say it again, there is a for­mu­la for suc­cess. Some­body has to in­spire you, then you as­pire, per­spire, ac­quire, re­tire and even­tu­al­ly you will ex­pire. Af­ter this comes the di­vine judg­ment, and we must all pre­pare for this mo­men­tous oc­ca­sion. We have men­tioned scin­til­lat­ing cen­tral star Veera Bha­jan.

Let us board the Tri-Star of our imag­i­na­tion and jour­ney to Aus­tralia to meet Nick Vu­ji­cic. He is an­oth­er hero, a true role mod­el who mer­its our at­ten­tion. His moth­er was ad­vised to have an abor­tion, but she re­fused. Tech­nol­o­gy re­vealed that he would be phys­i­cal­ly chal­lenged but his par­ents trust­ed in God and though trau­ma­tised when he was born, they main­tained that with God all things are pos­si­ble. He has achieved a BSc in fi­nan­cial man­age­ment, has writ­ten two books and is a mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­er. He was born in 1982 and look at the kalei­do­scop­ic ar­ray of his achieve­ments. The ti­tle of his first book re­veals the se­cret: No Hands, No Legs, No Wor­ry. He has a vi­sion on his screen. I have not­ed with in­ter­est that your pas­sion for ex­cel­lence goes be­yond the halls of acad­e­mia. In the Namde­v­co Agri­cul­tur­al Sci­ence Com­pe­ti­tion, Jessy Dook­wah placed third in the Boil­ers and Crop Pro­duc­tion cat­e­go­ry while Solomon George placed sixth in the EMA Dra­mat­ic En­vi­ro­logue cat­e­go­ry.

In the Mag­net Pro­gramme, 30 stu­dents will re­ceive the Caribbean Vo­ca­tion­al Qual­i­fi­ca­tion Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in grow box pro­duc­tion. While many schools have turned their backs on agri­cul­ture, you un­der­stand that there can be no re­al se­cu­ri­ty with­out food se­cu­ri­ty. You are con­vinced that you must not be slaves to the whims and fan­cies of the de­vel­oped world. You have em­braced a mul­ti-di­men­sion­al cur­ricu­lum. Wa­ter­loo Sec­ondary School is a pres­tige school. Re­mem­ber it is not your lo­ca­tion, but your in­spi­ra­tion. You must con­tin­ue to turn sun­set in­to sun­rise, you must ig­nore crit­i­cism and count your chick­ens be­fore they are hatched. If you were not born with a gold­en spoon, get a wood­en one and paint it gold. The vi­sion on your screen must in­clude love and re­spect for your par­ents.

You must con­tin­ue to dis­play a strong sense of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. Our watch­words con­tin­ue to be dis­ci­pline, tol­er­ance and pro­duc­tion. Love peo­ple from every race, class and cul­ture. Be strong; de­vel­op an ap­pre­ci­a­tion and pas­sion for ex­cel­lence. Re­mem­ber this day for as long as you may live. Show re­spect for those who have helped you; have an at­ti­tude of grat­i­tude. Dear stu­dents, God must be on your screen so you can have an at­ti­tude of com­pas­sion for the un­for­tu­nate and re­mem­ber what Dis­raeli said: "Nur­ture your mind with great thoughts, be­cause you nev­er rise high­er than the lev­el of your think­ing." Wa­ter­loo Sec­ondary School, con­grat­u­la­tions. Keep the right vi­sion on your screen!