Careers & Education in JAMAICA (A GREAT STORY): Wayward teen offered scholarship to change her ways....."Any time somebody speaks to her she has an answer but not in a positive way, and she fights a lot with her little sisters and cousins and loves company. She's a part of the gang and all the members are older than her."

BY NADINE WILSON Career & Education reporter  Sunday, April 20, 2014    

ODETTE Stables has often cried because of the destructive path her teenage daughter has taken, but it was these tears that recently moved one philanthropist to promise the Norman Manley High School student a scholarship to attend university if she changed her ways.

Overcome by tears, mother Odette Stables
 shares the struggle she has been
 having with raising her teenaged daughter
 during a Rebirth Project workshop
at Caenwood Complex.

Stables broke down in tears while venting her frustrations to attendees at the Rebirth Project workshop held at the Caenwood Complex two weeks ago. The project is a nine-week intervention programme aimed at influencing positive attitudes and reforming the behaviour of 25 at-risk teenagers from Norman Manley and Tivoli Gardens High schools.

"Any time somebody speaks to her she has an answer but not in a positive way, and she fights a lot with her little sisters and cousins and loves company. She's a part of the gang and all the members are older than her.

"I was trying to keep her in the house and most times I am not there because of the type of work I do. I get others to talk to her and she doesn't listen. She say yes, but is the same thing over again," she said.

The mother decided to share her story after a motivational presentation was made by Poye Robinson, who, at 27 years old, is the founder and chief executive officer of International Travel and Cultural Exchange which he started in 2010. Despite losing his sight due to glaucoma in 2012, Robinson went on to complete his degree in logistics and supply chain management from the Caribbean Maritime Institute, graduating as valedictorian of the class of 2013.

After hearing of Stables' struggles, the benefactor, who has asked that his name be withheld, called the teenager to the front of the room and after asking her a few questions, determined that she was a natural leader with a lot of potential. He then pledged to pay her university tuition to any local university, if she matriculates and demonstrates a commitment to changing her current destructive path by leaving the gang, improving her behaviour at home and school and respecting authority, especially her mother. more