Born and raised in Trench Town, I’ve seen that my community, more than anything, needs to be led on a path of peace and love, and it starts with the youths. Whether it’s my friends or other youth in the community, I try to teach them the beauty of virtuous living. I try to enlighten them about the things they may be participating… Read more →←
Topic: Safety and justice
I am what they called ‘unattached youth’, and I can count on my fingers, toes and teeth the persons who have told me that I will never amount to anything. But it is because of my experiences that I have reached where I have. I joined Fight for Peace two years ago when I was 17 years-old. First, I was a part of the boxing and the book… Read more →←
I’ve been involved in badness since I was 11 years old, when I had my little ‘one pop’ (single shot gun). When the Peace Management Initiative (PMI) first approached me I never took it seriously, because I was making too much money on the streets leading a gang here in Denham Town. But just three of us are left from a crew of… Read more →←
People at school are always surprised when I tell them I do taekwondo with Fight for Peace. But now I have a green belt and I help coach! What I really like about it is learning self-defense. You can protect yourself on the road like a lot of times I have to use it at my school, Camperdown High School. Students that are bigger than me… Read more →←
I feel good in myself when I can sit down and listen to someone who has a similar experience to me being in state care. Because what I have been through I can literally say to them – “I am you!” Yet, when I was going through those experiences I could not even imagine that I would be alive today, because I did have a lot of suicidal… Read more →←
In 2017, a 17-year-old student named Mickolle Moulton was murdered. The outrage was intense, and the pain was profound. Her family, friends, teachers and those who wished to pay their respects gathered for a candlelight vigil in her honour. Despite the general atmosphere of sadness, the vigil was one that celebrated her life,… Read more →←
I was raised in West Kingston. Growing up where I did, I soon realised as a child that you got more support being deviant than being good. Good people treated you badly, and friends who were doing bad things also treated you badly. For any child who’s trying to be good in the middle of all that, life is going to be lonely. Most of my… Read more →←
For years, I thought I had no one, and believed that my mother abandoned me at a bus stop when I was six years old. Now, a month ago, I finally found my family. Here I am on the phone speaking to this woman 26 years later, having had all that as the truth in my mind, and after all those years alone in state care. Here we are talking on… Read more →←
I coach at Fight for Peace teaching youths martial arts as a way to get them to exert some energy and aggression that might be pent up in them throughout the day. Taekwondo is my passion and even though at 24 I have now been a world champion four times, my real passion is for coaching. I lost my father to violence at age 5. So, for… Read more →←
Dwight Cooper, aged 13, does not say much. Instead he leads other children through his actions. Their eyes following his movements, the taekwondo class shadows him step-by-step. Whenever a student makes a mistake, it does not prompt admonishment from Dwight. Instead his style is to pause the session, walk over and demonstrate the correct… Read more →←