Germaine Barrett empowering youth through debating

When Germaine Barrett walked up the steps to the stage at the Prime Minister’s National Youth Awards for Excellence on Saturday, February 4, on the lawns of Jamaica House, he was escorted by his cousin Rushana Jarrett. She was his guide, because, as he told The Gleaner afterwards, he is as “blind as a bat”.

He might just be, but he has a vision for a better Jamaica, which is perhaps one of the reasons why Jamaica Association for Debating and Empowerment (JADE) Limited was awarded the Prime Minister’s National Youth Award for Excellence in Youth Development. The man who was born in Shortwood district, Cambridge, St James, is the founder and executive director for JADE. Jarrett is also the special project manager at JADE.

Incidentally, Barrett was given an individual Prime Minister’s National Youth Award for Excellence in 2017 for debating. He was one of 55 awardees recognised in commemoration of Jamaica’s 55 years of Independence. He was also a recipient of the Ubuntu Award for Humanitarian Service, and numerous other awards for debating, public speaking and adjudication excellence, locally and internationally.

ACCOMPLISHED DEBATER

From 2010 to 2015 he was among Jamaica’s most accomplished debaters, ranked among the top five debaters in the Caribbean and Latin American region at the World Universities Debating Championships (WUDC), held in Botswana (2011), Philippines (2012), India (2013), and Germany (2014). In 2015, he was adjudged the second-best debater at the Pan-American Universities Debating Championships, held in the United States. In 2016, he convened the aforementioned championships in Montego Bay, Jamaica, “bringing international calibre debating to our shores for the first time”.

Locally, Barrett has dominated the Jamaican debating landscape, winning the NCU Invitational Debate Series in an unprecedented three consecutive years (2012 to 2014). He has participated in and won numerous other debate matches. “And now I am relegated to participating in exhibition and masters debates,” the alumnus of Cambridge Infant School, Cambridge Primary School, and Cornwall College, all in St James, said.

He also has a Bachelor of Art degree in Theology from the Jamaica School of Preaching and Biblical Studies, an associate degree in computer studies from Colborn College, and a bachelor of science in industrial and analytical chemistry from the University of Technology, Jamaica. Out of that long list of individual achievements, JADE was conceived.

“Fuelled by a desire to serve as agents of positive societal change, a group of expert public speakers and debate enthusiasts … formed a national umbrella organisation for the advancement of debating, public speaking and critical thinking in Jamaica. This non-governmental organisation came into being in 2014 as the Jamaican Association for Debating and Empowerment (JADE) Limited, or JADE for short,” Barrett explained.

And, “Guided by its mission to foster empowerment through debating, public speaking and critical thinking in Jamaica … JADE Limited has achieved significant success and continues to provide invaluable expertise to communications skills development through these dimensions: debating, public speaking and critical-thinking training, debate adjudication services, planning and administration of debate and public speaking competitions, citizen empowerment, and conflict resolution.”

TOURNAMENTS

JADE has hosted many national and international tournaments and seminars, bringing together sometimes hundreds of students and staff. These include the Pan-American Universities Debating Championship in 2016, the National Collegiate Debating Championship, the Jamaica Debate Academy, and the National Debating Competition for High Schools.

“Each of these events has benefited their participants significantly, as they bring together the best and brightest minds in the Americas to work to provide Jamaican students with enhanced debating skills. These events have also directly positively impacted debaters at The University of the West Indies, Mona, and Western Jamaica campuses … . This helped to develop their leadership skills significantly, and has helped to shape them as active citizens,” the awards programme message says, among other things.

“This award is a testament to the almost 10 years of hard, yet rewarding work that has been undertaken by myself and the JADE team, across the length and breadth of Jamaica and various parts of the world, to advance debating as an indispensable tool for the empowerment and civilising of especially Jamaica’s youth population. Understandably, the JADE team and I are immensely proud to be the recipients of this most prestigious award,” Barrett, the aspiring senator/minister of education, said.