Anti-gang campaigner hopes to curb violence in the Caribbean

WEDNESDAY, JULY 6: A Bermudian anti-gang campaigner is to tour the Caribbean this summer with a plan based on advice from his mother in a bid to cut violence in the region.

Dennis Rahiim Watson, chairman of the US National Youth and Gang Violence Taskforce, will speak at churches, schools and community centres publicising a 150-point life programme designed to improve the lives of young people.

Mr Watson said: “There are three things that cause violence in the Caribbean. Number one is ignorance, number two are guns and drugs and three is unemployment.

“But even if you removed the guns and got people working, we’d still be in the same boat, the same dilemma, because this thing most social scientists have not looked at is the impact of profanity and threats.

“All of these words that come out of the mouth of the ordinary person today, back in my day it would lead to a fist fight.

“Today, you can be dead within three seconds to a minute. We have to address that — it’s how we talk to each other.”

Mr Watson was speaking in an interview with the Caribbean Journal after he spoke at the Caribbean Tourism Awards Gala held in New York earlier this month.

He spoke on the severe impact of gun violence on tourism, investment and international business and public safety.

Mr Watson told the Bermuda Sun on Monday: “ I’m from Bermuda and that’s where the programme comes from. Everywhere I go, people can identify with it. It’s definitely appropriate for Bermuda right now.

“Bermuda is producing, in effect, home-grown terrorists. The island has self-hatred it’s got to get rid of. It has major problems and they will get worse before they get better.

“Higher education on its own will not solve the problem, but life lessons will.”

Mr Watson said: “I’m on my way back to the Caribbean this summer to speak at churches, schools and community centres, to go on radio stations and say ‘this is the time to get up, wake up and live your best life’.

“It’s based on the life lessons I learned in Bermuda from my mother, my aunts and uncles and the formative black men who acted as father figures for me.”

He added: “I’m bringing hope and I have a message of hope and leadership and success.”

Mr Watson said: “We tell every young person we connect with...you’ve got to have a mission, you’ve got to have purpose in your life, you’ve got to have goals, initiative, persistence and confidence.”

Mr Watson — who dropped out of school in Bermuda early, but later returned and went to university — is based in New York, but has visited schools in prisons in Bermuda since 1979.

He has been honoured with five White House citations, including ones from Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Mr Watson said: “My primary work is in the United States of America, because this is where the major problems affecting the Caribbean and Bermuda can be traced.

“Every young person between the ages of 15 and 30 has access to cellphones, televisions, rap videos, iPods – they’ve got it all.

“In my generation, it was a transistor radio, a black telephone and a black and white television.”

He added: “Whatever happens in America, Bermuda and the Caribbean happens in New York first and it spreads from there.”