‘Mi run dem dung wid broad board!’

When Marlon Kerr’s rough, boisterous, authoritative, aggressive, tall and ‘trapting’ (strapping) neighbour, Annette Irving, from the gritty inner-city community of Tivoli Gardens, told him in February to leave the streets and start free training to become a junior technician who specialises in heating, ventilation and air conditioning, the fear of a good lashing from her made him act accordingly.

Now, five months later, he is elated that she pushed him to get a skill.

On Tuesday, the 23-year-old youth was among 14 men who graduated with the three different certificates from the Technical Skills Training Transformation and Empowerment Project (T-STTEP).

Irving, affectionately called ‘Sister Annette’, told The Gleaner that she is on a life’s mission to save as many inner-city youth living in Tivoli Gardens as she can. For this reason, she directs youth she sees idling to consider changing their life’s path, whether by force or not.

“Mi will lick pikni wid all broad board! Mi run dem dung wid broad board! Mi run dem dung wid hose! These young men know lick cross dem back wid broad board! Mi can’t sit back and watch dem dead because nobody no gi dem di time and effort or opportunity, because it’s everybody that want be bad man!” Irving told The Gleaner while standing beside Kerr, his certificates and award plaques at Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston on Tuesday.

She continued, “Mi no get dem fi come outa dem house, mi tek dem offa di corner! I believe in doing good, because after you’re gone, it’s what you do that will represent you; that you were here and you made an effort in something good.”

Irving said Kerr was one of those troubled youth she saw going down the wrong path, and she felt the drive to tell him about T-STTEP after being informed about it by the organisers.

Irving said she encouraged 10 other young men to register, but only seven completed the programme and received full certification, with Kerr on top for Most Improved Participant.

“I am so elated in what Marlon has achieved today,” she told The Gleaner with a smile.

After receiving his certificates, Kerr recalled the day he was approached by Irving about the programme.

He told her he stopped working at a store in downtown Kingston since last September due to gang violence, and she started pushing him towards greatness, a push he needed.

“Ya av fi push mi fi do certain things. If you no push mi, mi a go drop out, and Sister Annette now, mi did have a little fear fi her, and when she seh ‘Class!’, we affi go or she will page we,” Kerr told The Gleaner.

Kerr was clueless on the first day of the programme and he had no interest in air conditioning units.

“Now, mi can wire up a/c. If yuh gi mi 100 a/c fi wire up, mi can wire up di whole 100 a dem. Mi grasp everything,” he proudly stated.

When asked what was he doing before enrolling in the programme, Kerr casually said, “Mi just [did] a live!”

He left Tivoli Gardens High School at 19 years of age but missed the opportunity to pursue Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) subjects, given that he got involved in violence and was incarcerated for two months at the Metcalfe Street Juvenile Remand Centre.

“Mi did get in a little drama when mi ina 10 grade fi pick fi mi CXC, ... and end up ina a di Juvenile Remand Centre, so ina di time dem a pick fi do the subject dem, mi never at school,” he explained.

Kerr said he learnt valuable life lessons while incarcerated.

“It teach mi a valuable lesson fi know seh ‘the devil makes work for idle hands to do’. If a never that still, maybe mi wudn even de yaso right now. Maybe mi wuda be a bad man because when mi younger a grow up in a Tivoli, mi never know nothing but badness, so mi kinda did idolise di bad man dem, because mi a seh dem nuh work and dem a get paid, but really and truly, that shake me up, and mek mi know seh it better mi go look a work, get a trade so mi can forever have that,” he told The Gleaner.

Through T-STTEP, Kerr gained work experience as part of a team which installed a unit at the Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority.

Now that he has been given a life skill, Kerr said he will continue in the field and he still has his eyes out for greater opportunities.

Kerr said when he was younger, he aspired to become a soldier, but that is now nowhere near his mind any more.

ainsworth.morris@gleanerjm.com