Jamaican in Britain promotes his Afro-Caribbean heritage

Deon P Green

Sunday Gleaner Writer

Jamaican-born television broadcaster David Chen is the founder of 'Voicing for Jamaica', a medium through which Afro-Caribbean-Jamaican heritage is being exposed in the United Kingdom.

Chen has been residing between the U.K. and Jamaica for over 17 years and promotes a strong African and Caribbean heritage through the media worldwide.

Chen was born in Kingston, Jamaica, to a Chinese father and Jamaican mother from St. Thomas. He grew up in Kingston where he spent his teenage school life at Kingston College. He said his zeal to succeed is based on the teaching at Kingston College where "you were taught that you can do it - you can achieve all your goals and to never believe that you will fail, as the brave may fall but never yield."

After graduating from Kingston College, Chen migrated to England, where he joined his mother, primarily to assist with the upbringing of his two brothers - which he believe played a major role in his life, because he had to be focused.

"I was meant to be an accountant," he tells the Sunday Gleaner. Chen adds that with the high cost of education in the U.K., and his mother being the main breadwinner, he decided that he had to be self-sufficient. Chen ventured into travel and tourism in1989 to prove a point made by his geography teacher at Kingston College that despite failing geography in CXC he could use that failure to propel his ambition.

Patois

Chen's first job in the U.K. was with a travel company doing telesales. It was a challenge; having a strong Jamaican accent he wondered how his clients would understand him. But the Jamaican patios was more appreciated than he expected. "I realised that back then in the U.K. being a Jamaican Chinese was also something extremely unique as people were fascinated to know that I was from Jamaica," he recalled. "When you explain that in Jamaica there were many different races and cultures people became more appreciative of the unique style of the patois."

"I remember telling a group of people that the first time I heard the word 'racism' was at the age of 18 and that was when I came to the U.K.," related Chen. "They couldn't believe, and that was a turning point in my life, as back home in Jamaica life was totally different. In my time growing up in Jamaica, manners, discipline and respect were all I knew and I saw no colour," he stressed.

Influence

Chen said he grew up on the popular Jamaican saying, "One one cocoa full basket," using his toys as a means of earning. "As a youngster in school I used to charge others to use my game-boy, I charged twenty cents per game and from that I could afford a pants length to make a pair of trousers," he told the Sunday Gleaner.

Chen said he used to do odd jobs with Gordon Butch Stewart's ATL on Half-Way Tree Road in St. Andrew where he was not paid, but learnt a lot of business skills. He recounted: "I then realised that the same ideas can be used to make a business flourish and I implemented those same ideas when I started to work in the U.K. The principles were based on a positive mental attitude and accessing the right resources to achieve. Most importantly - don't get caught up in the hype and be extremely humble about what one is doing."

Recently, he returned to Jamaica for an eight-month stint. "The vision was that I will return to Britain stronger. Travelling to Jamaica energises the soul and puts you in a totally different frame of mind. It was there that the idea of appreciating and promoting Jamaica more emerged and (hence) Voicing for Jamaica was in full focus".

Community programmes

During his stay in Jamaica, Chen was based in St. Thomas where he started positive community supporting programmes, going into schools, hospitals and rural communities reasoning with the youths and trying to empower them. He said at times the experiences were negative, but the challenges taught him that regardless of the outcomes, the aim was to assist in putting St. Thomas on the international scene positively.

He started a number of voluntary projects concentrating on travel and entertainment, while maintaining the overall plan of Voicing for Jamaica. In addition he created PON TV at www.myspace.com/ worldpontv which can also be seen at www.davidchen.co.U.K.. The programmes, he said, have propelled many careers of unsigned musicians, which have also provided them the opportunity to tour internationally.

On his return to London, Chen was approached by BEN Tele-vision, which offered him a position as the main Caribbean presenter on their flagship programme The Breakfast Show aired live across the U.K., Europe and Africa three mornings per week. Chen also hosts other programmes with the most popular Caribbean feature being David Chen Raw and Uncut and The Caribbean Connection.

Chen also supports the communities through his websites. He says the overall aim is to highlight the culture of Jamaica and the Caribbean people worldwide under the theme, 'Education Comes Through Rhythms and Reasoning - Together We call it EDU-Tainment'.

Chen's future plan is to continue being a messenger to all, staying focused, self-motivated, persistent, consistent, hungry to achieve, and overall to continue Voicing for Jamaica.

David Chen