MESA members concerned

Chairman of the Men’s Educational Support Association (MESA), Grantley Osbourne, is lamenting that there are certain “pillars” in society that are broken and need to be fixed.

His comments came during a recent open discussion put on by his association at the St. Michael School.

Osbourne revealed that the meeting, which was held under the topic “Restoring the Broken Pillars in Society”, was meant to address the issues currently plaguing this island. He highlighted that the pillars which were broken included the school, religion, family, independence, love and the justice system.

“MESA is somewhat concerned about the issues prevailing the society and therefore we decided to have a discussion and see if we can come up with any solutions because there are some broken pillars in society. These pillars are important because they stand for support and they must be strong in order to hold together a building or society,” he said.

He revealed that they plan to document certain issues that were highlighted during the meeting and use them as guidelines when they submit their findings to the various governmental agencies.

The session was conducted by Tony Cave; and he addressed what the pillars of society are, why these pillars were broken, who caused them to be broken and what could be done to restore these broken pillars.

For Cave, one of the major broken pillars was the educational system.

“I think we are faced with a very brutal irony in Barbados. Over the past 45 years perhaps, we have collectively devoted enormous resources to the education of Barbadians,” he said.

As a result, he believes that this has bred a sense of entitlement in this generation, who are now not willing to fight for their own aspirations and goals.

The Chairman went on to note that MESA is currently trying to get a building to teach boys skills, such as how to repair simple household items, but the association has not yet been able to get a building from the government.