Interview with the Honorable Sam Condor, Deputy Prime Minister St. Kitts & Nevis

"Servce, commitment to service, community service in particular.  I think that will be the legacy of the Peace Corps - service to humanity."

Deputy Prime Minister, Sam Condor, has been active with the Peace Corps for as long as he has been involved in public service.  In addition to his role as Deputy Prime Minister, the Honorable Sam Condor has also served as Minister of Education, Minister of Youth and Minister of Community and Social Development.  With the impending 2012 closing of Peace Corps in St. Kitts and Nevis, I sat down with him to talk about Peace Corps, its contributions, and its legacy in the Federation.

1.    CH: In 2004 the Peace Corps returned to St. Kitts and Nevis, focusing primarily on youth and community development, small business development and promoting HIV/AIDS education and awareness.  What do you consider some of the most significant achievements of St. Kitts and Nevis Peace Corps Volunteers during the past eight years? 

DPM:  I think 2004 was really significant for us.  It was the time I went to the Ministry of Education and at that time I also had as part of my portfolio, the Ministry of Youth and Community and Social Development, and so I was basically at the forefront of welcoming the Peace Corps and setting them to work.  Really, I would say the most significant achievement was the way Volunteers became integrated in the community.  I know in the past it was sort of a government effort and we didn’t have the outreach and the intimate involvement of the community.  In 2004, the way Volunteers lived among the community was more intense.  The presence of the Peace Corps was real, it was palatable, and the people felt the impact. And so I think that when the Peace Corps returned to St. Kitts they came back with a different more meaningful, more community based approach and that was a significant achievement.

Another contribution of Peace Corps would be with the issue of HIV/AIDS.  As you are aware, the Prime Minister is the lead CARICOM spokesman for HIV/AIDS, not just regionally, but also internationally.  In this capacity, the Prime Minister was able to get tremendous assistance and support from Peace Corps Volunteers.   

2. CH: Peace Corps Volunteers have worked at the individual, organization, community and national levels, building the capacity of all stakeholders.  How sustainable do you think that work will be after Peace Corps leaves in October 2012.

DPM:  I think right at the beginning the Peace Corps sought as their role to build capacity so that their programs would be sustainable.   They have lent their expertise, in fact they have done a number of training courses on how to write projects, how to organize events and plan events and so on.  Really, in my view, the purpose of the Peace Corps has been that when they the leave, the programs will continue.  It was really the purpose and the emphasis and the focus of the Peace Corps in coming to the Federation, sort of a train the trainers program, assuring that these programs would be sustainable once the Volunteers leave the country.

3.   Question: Has another organization been targeted to take over some of the initiatives introduced and implemented by Peace Corps volunteers?

DPM:  I think that while the Peace Corps has primarily gone into the various Ministries and created opportunities, they have also implemented some outreach programs with a number of organizations, for example the Red Cross, the Central Bank, Youth Entrepreneurial Business Development, and of course the schools; and so they’ve gone not just into Ministries and Departments but community organizations to make sure people are properly trained.

4. CH: What do you feel are the most pressing issues facing youth in the Federation today?

DPM:  You would know that we have had a problem with delinquency and youth crime.  We think that maybe one way we can deal with that is creating employment opportunities for young people because we have very high unemployment among youth. And so I see, as a pressing problem, youth unemployment and the subsequent fallout of that in terms of crime and violence. The question is how to get young people to walk the straight and narrow and to protect them from the evils and the many distractions that exist.

5.     CH:  How do you see the role of government in addressing/providing solutions to these issues?

DPM: Of course government must always be involved, maybe even playing the lead role, but government cannot solve these problems alone.  We need community organizations to help, and again here’s where organizations like the Peace Corps assist tremendously in our efforts.  We also want to see the venue of the church and civic groups have a role in addressing this problem. Solutions must have a multi-disciplinary approach, especially by including families. I think that is something we have to focus on – parenting.  I believe that good parenting and consistent community involvement is the foundation of building a good society.
 

6.     CH: What do you think the concept of altruism -the instinct to do good deeds or show kindness to others - means to young people today?

DPM:  I think people usually live by example and if they see people doing good things, it influences them.  We need to be good role models for our young people, that is why we can’t leave it just to the parents, to the family alone, but need to involve the community.  You know the African proverb that it takes a village to raise a child that was popularized by Hilary Clinton; it is something we have known from time immemorial.

7.     CH: Youth volunteers worldwide contribute 3.5 billion hours annually, thereby contributing billions of dollars globally to local economies.  Volunteerism also promotes a sense of empowerment and connection to the community among young people.  Studies show that youth who participate as volunteers learn new skills, develop relationships with like minded peers, and as a process of experiential learning, helps to develop social competencies like empathy, leadership, and confidence.  Do you think young people have that sense of communal spirit and attachment needed to drive the idea of volunteerism forward?

DPM:  I believe so. I mean the things that we do we would not be able to do without that spirit and that intuitive quality towards volunteerism.  Carnival, the St. Kitts and Nevis Music Festival, International Cricket Competitions; all these events take tremendous planning and human resources and couldn’t be done without volunteers.  I mean, with our small population, if we didn’t have that commitment and level of volunteerism, we wouldn’t be able to do these events.  Community volunteerism is something that is admirable here in St. Kitts and Nevis.  I see that attitude of involvement from our people as a strength in the Federation.

8.   CH: What do you consider the potential of volunteerism in both empowering and building capacity among youth in the Federation?  What role do you think the government can play in encouraging and supporting young people towards a volunteering culture?

Answer:  Volunteerism builds capacity. The annual residential summer camp by the Department of Youth has a number of people who volunteer every year.  Many of the young volunteers were campers for years and continue on, serving now as camp leaders.  Adding volunteerism as a component for graduation from school could encourage this culture; it is something to think about.

9.   CH: The Peace Corps has as its mission three primary goals:  to provide skilled workers to the host country;  to help people of other countries gain a better understanding of Americans and our multicultural society; and to promote a better understanding of other people and their cultures on the part of the Americans.  Do you think the Peace Corps volunteers serving in St. Kitts and Nevis have accomplished Goal #2?

DPM:  It can’t help but do that. In fact from the beginning with the home stays, to independently living in communities, Peace Corps Volunteers see our villages, how we live from day to day, and they’ve been able to exchange and to interchange ideas about our real lives.  It is in this way we learn about one another, not just in classrooms or at the Departments and Ministries, but in our homes and our neighborhoods.  With this kind of integration one could only learn and understand more on a personal level.

10. CH: What do you consider will be the legacy of the Peace Corps in St. Kitts and Nevis?

DPM:   Service, commitment to service, community service in particular.  I think that will be the legacy of the Peace Corps - service to humanity.

11. CH: Now that the post in St. Kitts and Nevis is officially closing, what message would you like to give to Peace Corps and the scores of volunteers who have served in the Federation?

DPM:  I would like, on behalf of the government and the people in the Federation, to express in accordance, our thanks and appreciation to Peace Corps and the many Volunteers who have served here.  I would like to say that we have benefited tremendously from your service.  I would also add that I think building capacity is an ongoing process and that while we are now in a position to implement and do a lot of things we were taught, these multicultural exchanges and involvement must continue for the benefit of all humanity.  Life is a dynamic process, it’s an ever changing process and the advancement takes a continuous human interaction at all levels. So as a leader, I do not believe that this should be the end of your service to humanity and to our country.  We’d like to see a continuation of this lifelong commitment to service.

12. CH:  Is there anything personal you would like to add before we conclude the interview?

DPM:  We were very happy to have Peace Corps here and we want to thank you for your outstanding contributions.  I think the 25 Most Remarkable Teens program is a truly amazing program and I am certain that it is a program that will stay with us forever. It not only recognizes the positive behavior in our youth, but it also shows us that you must not give up on anybody - everyone has redemptive qualities. I believe this is going to be etched indelibly in the history of our young people.

And so it goes on August 20, 2012, as Peace Corps begins its last two months in the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis.

A True Tale of a Snake Oil Salesman

I returned to St. Kitts from the Peace Corps Close of Service workshop that was held on Antigua last week and found everything in order but the restlessness of my spirit.  While the workshop was both an opportunity to learn the logistics of winding down after two years of service and a chance to reunite with the 24 other Eastern Caribbean volunteers who began this journey back in August 2010 - and where both objectives were met – for me it also brought an unexpected feeling of being left without a tether.     

There are a lot of changes and choices I need to make, which is not a bad thing, just unsettling as the changes are imminent and I'm no longer insulated by the many have to do's of Peace Corps service.  The first order of business is to find a job; where I live will depend on where I work.  And when I open that compartment in my brain where job search has been tucked away for the past two years, anxiety and frayed nerves settle in. 

In thinking back on most of my adulthood, I remember being a remarkably decisive person, making decisions straight away and following through without hesitation.  These days I more often find that I put any kind of personal decision making aside, too many what ifs to consider.  I’ll think about it tomorrow has become my calming mantra.

The mother of one of the students I mentor stopped by my office yesterday. Standing in the hallway when I arrived for work, she greeted me warmly. She asked if she could come in for a few minutes and offered me one of the two cups of tea she held in her hands.  I settled in the chair behind my desk while she pulled a chair closer, and then I listened as she began to tell me her tale of a broken heart and a shattered life. 

It was really a story of survival - emotional survival - of going through hell for too many years until finally finding herself on the bridge to healing.

She said she had met Kishona’s father 14 years ago. A fraud, a bully and a charismatic manipulator is how she described the man who had nearly destroyed her.  He told her it was the titillation that made him take risks, he liked commanding the lives of others, a serial abandoner he enjoyed the secondary gain he got by inflicting pain on those who loved him; for him creating emotional devastation was his way of demonstrating power. Of his four wives, two sets of biological children, and one set of stepchildren, he said, “I walk away when I get bored, find someone else.  There's no shortage of needy, gullible women."

He reinvents himself with each new ‘family’, changing the back story to fit the new identity, but always appearing needy and vulnerable; blaming childhood abuse by a teacher for his personal failures, feigning unconditional love as though his very life depended on that love, threatening to kill himself if love was lost; I'm nothing without you, desperate and sorry, forgive me baby girl, always forgive me baby girl.  That was his hook.

A serial cheater, he had never spent a moment without ‘a someone’ in his life; each wife replaced by the mistress who eventually became the wife, and then soon became the ex, abandoned and betrayed, another human sacrifice heaped into a life-long pile of discarded lives; collateral damage of an emotional predator.  No one could ever love him enough.

He recently remarried, this time to a woman he said he was bored with already; wife number five.  “A mercy marriage,” he tells others and laughs. “She doesn’t even know her number, thinks she’s the fourth, as if that really makes a difference. What’s one wife more or less?” 

Co-dependent to an alcoholic, she’d always made excuses for him because she'd been told alcoholism is a disease.  She even tried to help him get sober.  It worked for a while, but his sponsor said he was too narcissistic, too arrogant to stick with it; and he had a big problem telling the truth, honesty is a must when you’re in recovery; too much ugliness looking back at him in the mirror she guessed, and he was after all, most notably a coward.

She told me she was finally able to forgive herself for wasting all those years thinking he was more important than her.  She was mindful of the road she had traveled to get to this place, and grateful for the strength to have made it.  She was ready to move on.

She said she was telling me her story because she wanted me to talk to the young girls I work with about the debilitating effects of emotional and verbal abuse.  It is a story that has a lot to teach and a story that needs to be told. Damage from emotional abuse may be harder to see than the broken bones and bruises of physical abuse, but it is just as painful - and just as wrong.

If I were giving recognition awards to adults instead of teenagers, she would receive the award in the Courage to Overcome category; it’s not easy resuscitating a life tossed into the heap. 

I gave her a sticker with a yellow happy face like the one I give to the kids.  It made her smile. And I gave her a hug for her courage and for sharing her story with me. And of course, I promised to pass her message along.  

Some things cross the cultural divide with clarity of purpose first, and lead to clarity of understanding.

And so it goes on the island of St. Kitts, August 1, 2012.