PRESIDENT Christine Kangaloo says young people must avoid a "get rich quick" mentality which could lead them to a life of crime and ultimately, a dead end.
She made this comment when she addressed a graduation ceremony at the National Energy Skills Centre's (NESC) Technical Institute in Couva on October 19.
Kangaloo told the graduates, "You have worked hard and tirelessly to earn yourselves that chance. Our nation needs you to now take that chance that you have earned yourselves, and make something good out of it."
She added, "The stories of young men and women in this country giving up in despair and giving themselves over to a life of crime, must never be your story."
At the heart of these stories, Kangaloo said, are young people in search of a formula to "get rich quick."
She told graduates this must never be their story.
"The story of our nation’s youth finding themselves in the depressing position of being at either end of a gun, must never be your story. Like it or not, the responsibility is yours to change the story of the dangerous trajectory in which our nation is heading, particularly where our young people are concerned."
Kangaloo said, "Like it or not, history is placing on your shoulders, the burden of lifting the story of young people in this country, out from the depths to which it sometimes sinks, and upward into the light and into the successes that your hard work now gives you the chance to step into."
She congratulated the graduates on their hard work and sacrifice to reach this momentous occasion
"My wish and my prayer for you this evening, is that you will all take the chance that you have given yourselves, and go out into the world and make it your footstool, and make yours and your family’s dreams come true."
Kangaloo told the graduates that in taking the chance provided to them by NESC, it will help to make Trinidad and Tobago a far better place than it is even possible to imagine.
"We will all win – the young, the old, the babe in arms and even those who are now lost to crime and criminality – if you make full use of the chance that you have given yourselves."
Kangaloo said while graduates have their diplomas and certificates, they could not believe they have it made.
She reminded them that their diplomas and certificates just give them a chance to make it.
"Here’s the thing. You now all have that chance and the biggest mistake, of all the mistakes that you can make in your lives from this point forward, would be not to make use of that very chance that you have worked so hard to get."
Kangaloo said, "All that successful people need, is really just the chance to be successful."
She added the ceremony was all about the graduates creating real chances for themselves to be successful in the rest of their lives.
Kangaloo congratulated the NESC for its metamorphosis over the years.
She recalled the establishment of the NESC Technical Institute by government in 1997 with one campus in Trinidad, to provide skills training for workers for Atlantic LNG Train 1 i
