Empowerment

Empowerment: the process of gaining freedom and power to do what you want or to control what happens to you as defined by the Cambridge dictionary 

Definition of Empowerment

I believe now more than ever, we all need to learn empowerment skills in order to use our immediate resources to improve our lives and those of our loved ones.  With all the technology available to us we need to learn how to use it to our advantage. Contact me to learn how to use the technology available to improve your lifestyle! Please go to my website Global Village Technology to learn more!

Embracing My Maroon Family History

Thesis: Understanding one’s family history is very important in helping to shape one’s character and personal growth and development.

In this blog,  I will discuss  my family history. My family history is very important to me because it helped me to understand who I am and to embrace my strengths and weaknesses.  Understanding one’s family history is very important in helping to shape one’s character and personal growth and development .  When I was growing up, my grandmother told me that our family were descendants of a great Jamaican leader. The leader was a woman called Nanny of the Maroons.  Nanny was the first woman in History to cause the British to sign a peace treaty with slaves in Jamaica. Nanny was one of the leaders of the Maroons who were runaway slaves. Nanny was also from the Ashanti warrior tribe of Ghana. Today in Jamaica, Nanny is recognized  as a National Hero of Jamaica and her portrait  has been used on Jamaican currency.

The maroons were a group of rebel slaves. They ran away from the plantations and formed their own government in the hills of Jamaica. The territory they occupied was dangerous. The area is known today as the cockpit country. This land  is made up of sharp limestone rocks. They understood the hills and were able to successfully evade the British. They understood how to survive on the land , to find food and water, something that was mind boggling to the British at that time. Many british soldiers who tried to capture the maroons died while doing so because they did not understand the terrain of the land and some starved because they were unable to find food and water. After  starving and having a hard time to survive, they were forced to sign a peace treaty with the Maroons . This was a result of Nanny’s leadership. This Treaty was signed in the year     .   The treaty  would allow the Maroons to live in peace and keep their own government and in return, the Maroons would teach  the British how to survive in this land and how to find food and water.

At the time when my Grandmother told me this important part of my history, that I was a descendant of Nanny, I did not understand the importance. Now that she has passed away, I wish I had gotten the chance to be around her more, to learn more of my family history. In the community known as Maroon Town, St James,  my Grandmother was very well known. She moved from her community in Portland, to Maroon Town St. James when she was young. She was six (6) feet tall and was a  very beautiful and confident woman. She was very strong physically. She was also known to fight any man that tried to challenge her. She was  however well liked by her community and a very generous person. She had six (6) children, of which my father was the last, and she also took care of many other children who did not belong to her. She lived to be one hundred (100) years old. Up until about age 92, she was still very active, she would walk down to the town center, she still had some of her own teeth, her skin was very nice, she had a sharp memory, she loved to talk. She looked thirty years younger than her real age. After age ninety two (92) however, her brain started to degenerate and she eventually succumbed to alzheimer’s disease. 

I  feel very proud whenever I think of my Grandmother and also my Ancestor, nanny of the Maroons.  I have learnt to understand more about myself, my behavior and my life goals. I am very community centered. I take great pride in being involved in community activities, volunteering and giving back to the community. My ambition is to use my abilities and skills to become a community activist and philanthropist like Oprah Winfrey whose  life and work  is a great inspiration to me. Understanding my family history has also helped me to understand my personal traits, for example, I am very competitive, I always take on leadership roles in various clubs and organizations, I am very ambitious and sometimes have huge surges of confidence to do things that most people would shy away from. Sometimes I look back at my achievements and wonder where the confidence comes from.

In conclusion, understanding my family history has been  very important for me. It has helped me to recognize my strengths and weaknesses, it has helped me to appreciate my family heritage more and understand their behavior, it has given me pride and confidence that has helped me to cope in times when I feel low. I am proud of the history of the Maroons, my ancestor known as Nanny and all that she did to help to fight for the freedom of  slaves. It has given me hope for the future, to one day use my abilities to make a lasting positive impact on my community. I have been able to research more about the Jamaican maroon tribe and their contribution to the Jamaican society, appreciate my grandmother’s  role in her community. Understanding one’s family history is very important in helping to shape one’s character and personal growth and development.

Memories of My Jamaican Track and Field School Career

Jamaica is world renowned for it’s track and field  athletes. As a Jamaican, I have the honor of sharing in this heritage. Track and Field events make up a large part of Jamaican culture. Jamaicans attend track and field competitions as a form of recreation to watch competitors whether they may be from competing schools, competing clubs  or organizations, or competing towns.

Every athlete dreams of being in the Olympics. As a child growing up in Jamaica, I also dreamed of one day representing Jamaica in the Olympics, however, that was not the path my life would take. Nothing can replace the feeling of pride to see other Jamaicans dominating the world stage in athletics. Usain Bolt, a Jamaican athlete born in Trelawney, Jamaica, has continued the Jamaican legacy of excelling in track and field internationally. He currently holds the Olympic record for being the fastest sprinter in history. He has been awarded nine (9) Olympic gold medals. He holds the world record for the 100m and  200m sprint event and is the only person in history to ever do so. Other Jamaicans  who have represented our country and won Olympic medals  include Donald Quarrie, Merlene Ottey, Asafa Powell, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Elaine Thompson to name a few.

In Jamaica, our culture  celebrates track and field and the virtues that are required to be an athlete, like, dedication, discipline, strength and perseverance. Every Jamaican athlete has a personal story of dedicating hours of time and energy  almost every day to training and improving their technique in the various track and field events. It comes as a great insult to Jamaican athletes, when after all the hard work, extreme discipline and personal sacrifice that is put into training our bodies and preparing for the event, that people would suggest that our track and field abilities are due to performance enhanced drugs. The following is my personal story of my track and field school career in Jamaica.

 I started doing track and field at elementary school and from an early age I started training in the evenings after school for track and field events. At my elementary school, Corinaldi Avenue Primary School, located in Montego Bay, Jamaica, I remember participating in school competitions. The winners were encouraged by the coaches to train for interschool competitions. I remember representing my school at “The Comets Relays”. Myself and my teammates used to train every evening after school at the Cornwall College High School Field. There we met other athletes from various schools all over Montego Bay also using the same field to train. I remember that the field had a seating area with about fifty steps. Our coach made us train for sprinting by timing us as we ran up those steps. I never forgot those steps. That was the hardest part of the training routine. I calves ached after running up and down those steps.  

In high school, I continued doing track and field. I attended Herbert Morrison Technical High. My track and field practice routine  was like this: Show up for training at 4:00pm, Do warm up exercizes and  stretching,  do one lap around a 400m field, jog down Alice Eldemire road, down Howard Cooke Boulevard, to this beach called “Dump up”, then turn around and jog back to school, do one more lap around the field.  Sometimes we would jog up Westgate Hills and back to school. On other days we would jog to Freeport and then back to school. Sometimes I would show up to training without remembering to eat lunch. In my teenage, hyperactive mind, there was so much to do, I did not have time to eat. Our team did not have a dietician to  advise the  athletes on a proper  diet, and the coach  thought all the athletes had the common sense to eat before coming to training. There were many like me who sometimes forgot to eat. And there were many who just could not afford to buy lunch. But they showed up to training anyway. On that note I would like to  talk about the miracle workers known as track coaches that worked at our school. There were always limited resources because the school just did not have the money to fund the track department.  Yet with little or no resources, the coaches managed to produce athletes who were competitive at the regional and national level.

I remember when I won Champion Girl for the entire school. That was a great moment for me. Was I the fastest  girl in the whole school? No. But I was the fastest in my category. The way to win Champion Girl was participation and I had unlimited amount of energy. I participated in 100m, 150m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m track events. I also participated in long jump, high jump events and so I gained a lot of points which gave more points than the other female athletes in that particular year. How did I manage to participate in so many events, was it planned? Not most of the time, but there were a core group of runners who the coach would call on to run an event and I was one of them who would volunteer to run any event. Did I always win? No. But somehow I always managed to place in the top three and get either a Gold, Silver or Bronze medal.

The scenario usually went like this:

Coach: Nichole we cant find any one to run the 1500m race!

Me:But I just finished the 800m!

Coach: Just run this race and then you can relax.

Me:Ok.

Another Scenario:

Coach: Nichole we can’t find one of the runners to run in the 4  x 200m final, she didn’t show up, can you do it?

Me: But I just finished the 4 x 1 relay and I am hungry, I was just going to get something to eat.

Coach: Just run this race and then you can get something to eat. We really need someone for this race or else we will have to cancel the event

Me: OK (thinking about the food I was going to eat as soon as I finish).

Yet another  scenario:

Coach: Nichole  can you do the high jump?

Me:  I didn’t really train for that event coach.

Coach: It’s Ok I understand…but just come do this event anyway because the person who was supposed to do it is sick.

Me: OK.

Volunteering to run any race made me very popular on the track and field team and in the entire school. Many people knew me because I showed up for every race.  

Remember the core group of runners I mentioned earlier? These were a certain set of runners male and female, who would show up no matter how sick they were, no matter if they had not eaten, or even if they were not trained for a particular event. Just their willingness to volunteer, their confidence and camaraderie and how they encouraged their teammates no matter the situation, kept the group vibrant and active.

I was selected to represent Herbert Morrison at Western Girls Champ where I won the trophy for the best Class 4 female and I was selected to represent the Western region at the National Girls Champs in Kingston, Jamaica.  When our track and field team showed up in Kingston, our competition from the other schools always informed us about how old our jerseys were and how we were wearing the same jersey since the school started in 1976. Let me talk a little more about the situation regarding equipment and track and field gear. There was little or none. I remember we received our jerseys the night before. I also remember that I had to wash the jersey, use needle and thread to sew up the jersey, and iron it to wear at the track meet the next day. We also had to share spikes. One pair of spikes was shared among everyone who shared the same shoe size.  I remember that the coach told us that after we ran the race we should hurry up and run back to the starting line to give the spikes to the next person who was waiting on it to run their race. Inspite of all this, nothing could replace the feeling of pride when our team stood on the podium to collect our medals for winning a race or placing in the top three.

During my first year of college at the University of the West Indies, I signed up for the track and field team. At UWI, I stayed in the college dorms. That was quite an experience. My daily routine was like this:

At 4:00am the track team leader assigned to your dorm came knocking at the door. We would train by jogging to the field which was quite a distance from the dorms, and jogging around a section of the University known as “Ring Road”. We would do drills and work out which was timed to end at 6:00am at which time we returned to our dorms to get ready for class which started for me at 8:00am and ended at 5:00pm. After which I would go back to the dorm , shower, eat, do homework, get to bed by 12:00am, sometimes even 2:00am and then the cycle would repeat (yes they still came banging on my door at 4:00am) from Monday to Friday. Saturday and Sunday I slept the whole day, getting up only to shower and eat and do homework. Some Sundays, I would go to church. Church really helped to give me inspiration and strength to make it through the week. After the first semester at college, my grades really suffered. Again I was not eating properly, getting little or no sleep, too tired to concentrate in class.  I spoke to a guidance counsellor. She asked me to define my priorities in life. She explained to me that the track and field training was like a full time job, and my classes were like another full time job. She advised me that I would have to choose. I knew that my family had spent a lot of money to pay for my tuition to go to college to get a degree, not to be a member of the track and field team, and so I had to make the painful decision to drop out of the track and field program. Of course my teammates encouraged me to stay in the program but I just couldn’t do it.

Looking back at my school track and field career, maybe if I had someone to guide me in proper nutrition, balancing schoolwork and athletics, I would have continued. My best years I think were during high school. To my dismay, twenty years after graduating from Herbert Morrison, I am being made to understand that the coaches have to still struggle with limited resources to produce Star athletes.  Nothing much has changed since I have left. On that note, I would like to urge alumni members to donate towards  the Sports department, in particular the track and field department. Let us support our athletes that help to place Herbert Morrison’s name big and bold on the Jamaican map. I would also like to urge anyone reading this article to support sports programs in your community. Sports really make a difference in the lives of everyone involved.

The story doesn’t end here, I have many more memories to share but I will have to continue another time.

African Americans in America Do Not Have the Same Opportunity

https://youtu.be/_Xf7myMyOcM

Big ups to Dr Phil! A few years ago I would disagree with Dr Phil, but after living in America for a while and experiencing their education system, I have realized that a fair chance has not been given to African-Americans. Some teachers expect you to fail because of your skin color. They dont even give you a chance. They have this pre-conceived notion that you are inferior because of the color of your skin. I thank God for being brought up in the Jamaican education system where I had teachers who gave me a "superior" education using little or no resources. They worked wonders for me and my classmates and boosted my self-confidence and just constantly showered their classes with words of motivation, hope and yet challenging us to always strive for the best. Many African-American, Latino and other minority students I have met do not have this confidence. They have very low self esteem and only expect to attain mediocrity: mediocre jobs, mediocre standards of living and the list goes on. Lets stop pretending that this is not happening. Lets address the problem and do something about it.
Let me end by giving a lot of praise to my American teachers who are white and did not treat me any lesser because of my skin color. I did not have the same experience with all teachers but much respect to those who went the extra mile!

Racism

I am from a family of mixed races. Some of my ancestors were White, Black, Indian... just to name a few. We cant continue to ignore racism and pretend that it doesn't exist. We have to acknowledge it's presence and decide to do something about it. When we see our friends being racist, we have to choose not to participate. We have to be strong and stand up for what we know is right. Do The Right Thing.

Was the mom really a kidnapper?

http://news.yahoo.com/sabrina-allen-missing-austin-texas-found-mexico-153703990.html


These stories are very emotional for me. Before we label the mom as a kidnapper, it would be good to find the real reason she ran away. Was it because of domestic abuse? I have to agree with some of the commentators below for example ,

bet bush says,
"What is the whole story here? Why did he get sole custody? That's unusual. But, in some cases money can make the difference. And, if the girl okay? If she is in good condition and well cared for than I have to wonder why the mother didn't get custody. If the girl is in bad shape and emotionally messed up than sole custody to the father makes sense. It's scary how people can simply disappear from the face of the earth and nobody seems to know anything."

"Laura W says,
I'd like to know the whole story. Sometimes, (not saying this is the case here), these cases occur because the law won't keep children out of the hands of parents who are sexually abusing them.

Some of these people can be extraordinarily persuasive and that, coupled with unlimited funds, they can often end up the custodial parent thanks to a good ole' boy network.

What would drive a mom to such extreme measures? Either she's crazy, or there was a very serious reason to run."




http://news.yahoo.com/sabrina-allen-missing-austin-texas-found-mexico-153703990.html

Dear "Abused Women",

Dear "Abused Women", 

Please save your life and leave the marriage/relationship. Never think life will be over because you leave. God will provide help for you. It may seem hard walking away from this relationship to face the uncertainty of dealing with life, loneliness, taking care of kids, paying bills but one thing is certain, God will provide! He will provide new people in your life, he will provide comfort, he will provide ways to take care of your bills.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/stasi-ray-rice-wife-janay-palmer-therapy-defense-husband-article-1.1934262