Hundreds of new students were officially welcomed to the Barbados Community College (BCC) on Friday during a convocation ceremony.
They were given words of encouragement from the school’s management as well as tips to help them throughout their college life.
During her remarks, principal Annette Alleyne said undergoing tertiary education was a major milestone and it was not without challenges.
Sharing her personal experience as a teenager fighting anxiety and depression, she said that having mental health problems did not make one less deserving of success.
“When I was a teenager . . . I battled anxiety and depression a year just before I took my CXCs; I don’t know if any of you here have gone through that. I had lost interest in studying, in activities, in everything that I can think of; things that I used to enjoy . . . .For a whole year, things felt dark and I lived in a place that I didn’t understand,” she said. “Sometimes I think back to that period of my life and I wonder how our young people are coping because for me, it was very, very difficult . . . . It was a journey but it is something that I still remember and I’m determined not to go back to that place, but to be able to assist people who are struggling, because that is one of the experiences that has informed my life as an educator.”
BCC Principal Annette Alleyne. (SZB)
Alleyne told the story behind the popular Christian song Amazing Grace, which was penned by slave trader John Newton who later became a minister following a near-death experience at sea.
“It’s a song that tells us irrespective of what you’ve done in your life or where you’ve been or what experiences you have had, there’s always room for change. The Barbados Community College is the place of second chances, third chances, fourth chances,” she said. “I’m very happy to welcome those of you who have figured out that at this stage in your life, you want something different. It doesn’t matter what the past was, what bad decisions you made, what decisions you didn’t make. This is the time and an opportunity for you to rewrite that and to change the narrative and to change the trajectory of your life.”
Executive director of the Ashley Lashley Foundation, Ashley Lasley, and mental health consultant and creative systemic therapist Dr Janelle Chase-Mayers also chatted with the new students. (SZB)
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