Sean Nero

Leg­endary West In­dies and in­ter­na­tion­al crick­eter Court­ney Walsh says youths must play a lead­ing role in re­vers­ing the vi­cious tide of bul­ly­ing now plagu­ing schools across this coun­try.The re­tired Ja­maican sports star ex­pressed con­cerns about push­ing adults to the fore­front in this seem­ing­ly-con­ta­gious teen spe­cif­ic con­flict.He was re­spond­ing to con­cerns raised by Toni Sir­ju Ram­nar­ine, vice-pres­i­dent of cor­po­rate op­er­a­tions at en­er­gy com­pa­ny At­lantic who raised con­cerns about the resur­gence of bul­ly­ing in T&T.

Speak­ing at last Mon­day's 15th An­nu­al Sport Desk Sym­po­sium with the theme It Al­ways Seems Im­pos­si­ble Un­til It's Done and held at the Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel in St Ann's, Port-of-Spain, Ram­nar­ine said bul­ly­ing in the lo­cal school sys­tem was a se­ri­ous threat to the de­vel­op­ment of the na­tion's youth.She re­ferred to hor­ren­dous in­ci­dents of bul­ly­ing cap­tured on smart­phones which were then up­loaded to so­cial me­dia that went vi­ral.

Draw­ing on sim­i­lar chal­lenges he wit­nessed in the Ja­maican school sys­tem, Walsh said tak­ing the is­sue of bul­ly­ing away from chil­dren who were most af­fect­ed and plac­ing it in the hands of adults would on­ly stall ef­forts to end this scourge.Walsh said the youths had in­ti­mate knowl­edge of the dy­nam­ics that had in­fil­trat­ed their world and they need­ed to be con­sult­ed and in­clud­ed in dis­cus­sions aimed at ar­riv­ing at prac­ti­cal so­lu­tions.

He told the teenagers present that they held the pow­er to re­claim a serene space in which they could live and grow free from fear."The fight­ing in schools...I am aware of it be­cause we have had those prob­lems in Ja­maica. All I want to say is that the cam­paign has to start now by all those in the au­di­ence. You are our fu­ture lead­ers and if you put a stop to it, it will stop," Walsh added.

Ram­nar­ine, dur­ing her con­tri­bu­tion, said stu­dents at­tend­ing the Sport Desk men­tor­ship sym­po­sium no longer had the lux­u­ry of side step­ping the is­sues raised be­cause they had not been vic­tims.

"As lead­ers, we have to put down our com­plaints and take up own­er­ship. We have to re­alise that part of the so­lu­tion to any prob­lem can start with us," she said.