Privilege, poverty, crime and leadership were among the topics discussed by summer students as part of the inaugural Future Leaders Programme.

Students from grade 8 to 12 were given the opportunity to take part in the three-week programme, which invited members of the community to share their experience and expertise on social issues facing the island with the students. The course, which was facilitated and taught by Francis Patton teacher Alandra Swan and directed by Ryan Robinson-Perinchief, included presentations by senior magistrate judge Juan Wolffe, president of the race relations charity Lynne Winfield, community worker Gavin Smith and anti-violence activist Gina Spence.

The 16 students who took part gave presentations at the closing ceremony held at the Berkeley Institute on Friday evening, which was attended by incoming Premier David Burt. One student, Dakota McDonald, was part of a group that talked about privilege and how the community needs to come together to understand each others’ circumstances. Race was one area of discrimination her presentation covered. She told The Royal Gazette: “Most whites have more privilege than blacks in Bermuda. I thought that this topic was important because this is happening in our country. More blacks are on financial assistance and are more at a disadvantage.”

Dakota’s group produced a chart showing various forms of discrimination that are present in society including race, gender, class, ability and sexual orientation. They asked two volunteers from the audience to mark on the chart where they thought they stood as subjects of privilege or discrimination. A male and female took up the challenge. Dakota explained the results: “The woman felt that she was in a targeted group and the man was in the privileged group.

“It is more than race that separates you from getting privilege — things like socio-economic class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability — there are a lot. It doesn’t always depend on race.

“If people continue to just fight we are not going to get any better. If we want to see a better community and a better Bermuda then we need to help everybody — we can’t have one type of people struggling.”

Another group was made up of Justin Bascome Dickinson, Nathaniel Binega Northcott and Seon Tatem who focused their talk on inequality and crime.

Nathaniel told us: “In Bermudian society today we find that race and inequality is a rarely talked about subject. We went to watch a drug court session and saw someone convicted. Lynne Winfield came and gave a presentation.

“There are institutions that reinforce the message of inequality. I don’t believe that everybody means to do this, maybe the society around them has moulded them — they do it whether they mean to or not.

“Nobody wants to hurt anyone without a legitimate reason. In the Future Leaders Programme we can talk about these issues and talk about solutions — this programme is part of the solution and advocating. It won’t be an overnight solution.”

The Premier made a short address to the students following their presentations advising them to share the wisdom that they had learnt.

“The most important thing that you can do is not to keep it to yourselves — share it with your friends, share it with your family, share it with the people you meet because the most important thing we can do to effect change is making sure that we educate others on the issues that we are facing in our society.

“There is no question that Bermuda needs young leaders. You have the power to effect change. Ensure that you are participating and continuing to grow because we need leaders of this country who will step up and are going to provide debate when I reach my old age. I look forward to seeing great things from all of you in the future.”

Ms Swan added: “They have taken away an awareness that they can be a power to make change. One of the things that they have all been challenged on is whatever information they have learnt, whether it is about inequality, income gaps or race and poverty, is what are we going to do about it now? They are young but they still have a voice.

Many of them didn’t realise the power that they had until they got to the end when they said wait, we can make a difference.

“The second thing they took away with them was their ability to be connected with their environment — some of them live in the areas that we talked about so for them it was important to do more than just talk about it — it was get out there and do something. There are organisations that they can take part in and so it is important for them to know that they have a voice and can do something even at a young age.”

Ms Swan said there may be an opportunity to run a similar programme at Berkeley Institute throughout the year and it is hoped that the summer programme will continue next year.

For more information about the Future Leaders Programme visit the Facebook page Future Leaders Programme or email futureleadersbda@gmail.com