Ten years ago there was an upsurge in criminal activity in Basseterre. Young men to broke into homes and burgled them, they injured each other with knives and sticks. They raped young girls. They assaulted tourists and rob them.

The public was alarmed by these foolish, wanton youthful crimes and I, as a member of the public, voiced the public’s concerns in my newspaper articles.

I blamed the bad situation on the education system, and as a former teacher and headmaster, I thought I had a clear view of the serious social problem which faced St. Kitts and particularly Basseterre.

I argued that the education system had effectively divided our society promoting a class system which was based on academic achievement.

I was uniquely equipped to present this proposition. I was the first headmaster of the first comprehensive high school in Basseterre. The Basseterre Junior High School was created to take in all children who had reached the age of 12 regardless of their level of achievement at the primary school.

One of the features of the school was the way it distinguished between the high fliers and the rest. Everybody was supposed to spend two years in the Junior High School preparatory to being selected to the Basseterre High School which unofficially was called the Basseterre Senior High School.

Predictably, less than 50 percent of the intake could pass the selected test after two years, and after three years at high school less than 50 percent of those who were selected reached the high academic levels required by the overseas examiners.

In other words, for every hundred 12-year-olds who entered the comprehensive high school system, only 25 were able to gain the qualifications of high school students. Another 25 could say that they went to the “Senior” high school where they at least acquired a label to take with them through life.

In some cases along with this high school label they also acquired such skills as home economics, woodwork, metalwork which enabled them to enter the technical college and enhance their skills in a particular area.

The technical college was the educational lifeline for many a youngster. They learned plumbing, electrical installation, basic construction and the like.

Put together the graduates of the technical college and the academic graduates of the Basseterre High, out of every hundred who entered the first form of the Basseterre Junior High School only about fifty entered the adult world equipped with either the academic or technical requirements to find work with good wages on which to build a successful future.

Their jobs and training elevated them to the middle class, some distance from their peers who entered with them at the Basseterre Junior High School.

This other 50 percent of the school leavers in any year were dumped into the society to drift the through the dangers of unaccomplished adult life. Thus the education system which produced the high flying academics also produces a low level of society of drifters.

Some of these drifters sauntered into deviant behaviour for two reasons. They did not care what they did and tried anything. They could easily succeed at: prostitution, drug trafficking and banditry. The other reason was of course their inability to secure jobs, which of course led to the same result.

My contention then was that something should be done to help that 50 percent of youth who must face the world without the skills with which to make a living. While there was little that could be done about those who were already lost, there was a lot that could be done to save those still at school from graduating into hopelessness.

My solution in response to an appeal from Dwyer Astaphan was to start an initiative for those students who would leave the Basseterre Junior High School without passing any subjects.

Mr. Astaphan took the initiative with the utmost enthusiasm. He invited me to visit the school in its final weeks to tell the leaving students about the Project. Accompanying him was Vesta Southwell, one of his assistants.

Back in his office he organized a task force to consider and to work on the proposition. Many high caliber people attended and committed to a recruitment party which spread all over Basseterre doing house to house canvassing for the first intake to the new concept. Meanwhile the concept was named Project Strong.

Mr. Alfonso Barker canvassed Conaree, and Kurt Lewis responded. When Kurt left he had done a job attachment at Hanley’s. After nine years he has grown to manhood working at Hanley’s. Kurt was a standard bearer for Project Strong and Proprietor Hanley was a pioneer in the business of fathering mentoring and training the young people of Project Strong.

In the years since Kurt, Project Strong has defied the skeptics who thought it was just a brainwave that would evaporate after a year or two.

Derick Elliottt, the ground supervisor at Ocean Terrace Inn did his job attachment at OTI. Nigel Matthew did his at Gordon’s at the CAP Southwell where he is now the foreman. Judith Maynard has already served six years at the post office.

Omar Dore trained at La Guerite but was a persistent fixture in Project Strong’s kitchen. Marriott employed him as trainee chef and became so impressed with his potential that they have been sending him all over the United States to develop his culinary skills.

There are other successes. They have been trained for work at Cable TV, the Air and Sea Ports, the Defense Force. One of them is a stylish director of traffic in the Police Force. Three of Project Strong’s staff were recruited from Project Strong.

In the past ten years Project Strong has enabled young people at risk to raise themselves out of that culture of hopelessness and bridge the gap between themselves and those who graduated from high school.

At the same time they have carefully avoided a life of crime and are productive citizens of our country.

I recommend Project Strong as a part of the answer to our social problem.