Gareth Manning, Gleaner Writer
United Kingdom participants in the 'Generating Genius' educational project arrive at the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston last month. Ten British and 10 Jamaican schoolboys are participating in a four-week science summer camp at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus. - WINSTON SILL/FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER
AS AN above average 12-year-old, Tony Sewell understood what it meant to be at the mercy of peer pressure while aiming to achieve academically.
"I was torn between gang violence and academics until someone saved me," he says.
Now an educator by profession, Sewell has a passion for creating leadership and developing young scientific minds.
Dr. Tony Sewell is a on a mission to create young, black geniuses in Jamaica and the United Kingdom.
A third-generation Jamaican residing in the United Kingdom, Sewell has transformed his experience into an enthusiasm for moulding young boys for academic success.
PILOT PROJECT
"The real underachievers are boys who are average and above. So many of them do not make it. So many think they have reached, but they haven't. The issue with boys is that there are so many temptations," he says.
Out of his enthusiasm for their plight, Sewell has developed a programme that he calls Generating Genius.
The programme, which is being conducted in tandem with the University of the West Indies, Mona, the Jamaica National Building Society, the Voice newspaper in the U.K. and the Gleaner Company, is geared at encouraging high educational achievement among boys aged 12 to 18 through the study and learning of medicine and research science.
Twenty boys - 10 British pupils and 10 Jamaican students - are already part of the pilot project that started in July.
The programme will go across five summers. Each encounter will consist of four weeks.
The programme should enable these youngsters to work from as young as 14 in government laboratories across the country.
He adds that many projects, which target poor, young, black boys, often have no impact because they are frequently under-funded and have short life spans.
"We have done research in the U.K. and Jamaica and under-achievement is cutting into the average and above average student. It is so bad, we need to start a community. These children have the potential to be leaders. We're building leaders," he says. "We have no engines for males, all we have are DJs. They are the engines for our males."
DEVELOPMENT THROUGH SCIENCE
Dr. Sewell says his aim is to help develop youngsters who perform above average as they are in the majority and their need for knowledge is often left dissatisfied by the current education system.
"What the school can't do is they haven't got the laboratory facilities."
He says, as such, the boys are often left bored and they sometimes get into trouble.
"Science at the moment is not getting enough students through the door. The reason for that is it's not being taught very well."
Many boys, he says, are interested in the area.
"If football and DJs are the two main things in a boy's life, then science is third."
The Gleaner spoke with some of the participants in Port Royal as researchers at the Marine Laboratory sought to kindle their interest in the study of life sciences.
"I love animals, I don't know why," a very shy and reserved Ashleigh Kelly said.
Ashleigh, 12, is from the U.K. He has a deep interest in life sciences and wants to be a doctor, although he is not sure what kind of doctor he wants to be.
But while quiet and reserved, Ashleigh was full of energy as we travelled on boats into open waters to observe mangroves in Good Body's Channel and Refuge Cay, just off the Port Royal coast.
As we travelled back to land, the boys were rewarded individually with an attempt to drive our speed boat. A once quiet Ashleigh became excited as he was succesful in his first try.
Amanda Wladysluk, a teacher from London who chaperones the boys, says the summer camp experience has brought the group together.
"The boys are mixing and mingling. Before this, the U.K. boys stuck together. The trip showed U.K. boys more of what Jamaica has to offer. Some of them thought Jamaica was poor and shabby. For the Jamaican boys, it's showing them more about why they need to attend university," she says.
SOCIAL INTEGRATION
She believes social integration will help the development of the boys.
Dr. Sewell agrees: "Men don't know how to get along. A lot of this is about boys learning how to care for each other and get on ... A programme like this is a model for some of our very bright students in our community."
