From URP to COSTAATT degree Originally printed at trinidadexpress/news/From-URP-to-COSTAATT-degree-282090551.html By Camille Hunte camille.hunte@trinidadexpress November 9, 2014 Thirty-three-year-old Nekisha Alexander graduates from the College of Science, Technology and Applied Arts of Trinidad and Tobago (COSTAATT) this month with an associate’s degree in Journalism and Public Relations. She will graduate with second class honours after achieving the highest GPA in the programme this year. But she faced many struggles along the way. The Laventille native shares her story in this week’s edition of “From Laventille With Love”, the 15th story in a series highlighting positive groups, organisations and individuals from the stigmatised Laventille community. Despite growing up in Rudolph Charles Link Road, Laventille, an area notorious for criminal activity, Nekisha Alexander was determined to make something of herself. The fourth out of five children, Alexander said her childhood was filled with struggles. “It was the usual no father around. My mother wasn’t around most of the time because she worked several jobs to try to make ends meet, so I can’t say I had that influence from a mother while growing up. Basically, we had to raise ourselves.” Alexander has also experienced the effects of crime in her community first-hand. In 2003, her older brother was shot and killed as he stood near his home. This was a dark period in her life, she said. “For a while, it was like I didn’t care about anything. At that point in time I started liming on the block and following the wrong company. I just didn’t care. I didn’t care about life any more. But she soon realised she wanted better for herself. “While living that life there were times I would be shot behind. There were times police would pick me up from on the corner. And every time something like that happened it was my mother who was there to rescue me. I just didn’t want to see that look of pain on her face any more. I wanted to see pride. I wanted to see joy.” With a passion for journalism, Alexander enrolled in the programme at COSTAATT, maintaining a 3.5 GPA to graduate magna cum laude. She supported herself during this time with a job in the Unemployment Relief Programme (URP), earning $750 a fortnight. “I used to wonder how I would pay my school fees, pay rent and see about my daughter. But I pushed and I struggled and I made ends meet.” Alexander is the only one of her siblings to complete secondary school and earn a degree. She went on to secure a job as a broadcast journalist with a popular radio station. Now the ambitious Laventille native is looking forward to continuing her studies at COSTAATT, where she will pursue her bachelor’s degree. She also plans to write a book. Alexander no longer lives in Laventille, deciding some three months ago to relocate to a safer area for the sake of her seven-year-old daughter. It is a decision she feels sad about having to make. “I wish I could still be in Laventille. I wish I could be there with the people and try to show them a better way. But too many nights my daughter has to be crying when she’s hearing gunshots. We have to be hiding when gunmen passing through the yard. Even when I’m coming from class or when I pick up my daughter from school and I’m waiting on the taxi stand, gunshots are flying. I just wanted to make it safer for her. If I could have been in Laventille to encourage the other young people who need that support, I would have loved to be there. But I had to put my family first.” Alexander, who also has a 14-year-old daughter who doesn’t live with her, says she wants her children to experience a better life than she had. She wants to someday return to Laventille and initiate some projects to help uplift the community, including a facility to assist those who are unable to read or write. “But I have to work on developing myself first,” she said. Alexander expressed gratitude to all those who helped her along the way. “I had friends whose mothers would take me in sometimes and feed me and take me off the streets. There was always someone looking out for me. And that’s what some of these youths need as well, someone to look out for them.” She is especially grateful to Jasmine Welcome, a woman she said was like a second mother to her and is her role model. “She was able to keep me grounded and she welcomed me into her home. She showed me what a family is like.” She also thanked her friends Natalie and Steve, as well as her nieces and nephews for their support. Alexander believes there are many opportunities available to steer youth away from a life of crime and has this advice for youths in her former community: “If you really want to do something, there is OJT, there is MuST, even if you’re working CEPEP, you can work in the morning and do some evening classes. You can go at your own pace, but it has to start with you. You have to want better for yourself.”
Posted on: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 12:43:32 +0000
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