The Tribune

By KORTNEY RODGERS

AN inaugural leadership summit in Nassau next week is aiming to inspire the community to “do more and talk less” in addressing social issues and ills in the Bahamas.

The Centre for Leadership, Education and Training (C-LET) intends to get people to “do something positive” by hosting its first Community Leadership Summit at the Geoffrey Brown Auditorium, Queen’s College Campus, Village Road, on October 28.

The organisation, with a number of community leaders, is encouraging Bahamians to take “350,000 steps toward an improved social order in the Bahamas” by attending a one-day summit designed to offer help, support and encouragement to people who are currently involved in community work and ordinary citizens.

The Dean of C-LET, Dr Reginald Eldon, said the summit was designed to inspire members of society to commit and instil hope while taking some responsibility in turning the social situation around in Bahamian communities.

“I’m a little bit weary of too much talk,” Dr Eldon told The Tribune. “We need people who are practitioners who can go in the community and help people. We need to find a way to impact the lives of people so the community can be made safer and we can transform fear into positive actions.”

Driven by her own personal experiences, co-director of the Community Leadership Summit and social entrepreneur, Michelle Miller, explained that repairing the country’s social fabric will not happen overnight, but the summit will act as a catalyst to start looking at society’s methodology with regard to helping others.

“I believe people can be helped, but helping can hurt if it’s not done properly,” Ms Miller said. “As a society we can tell from the results what we are doing right and wrong. We look at the results and call it the problem. The Bahamian population is said to be about 350,000. We are asking Bahamians collectively, if each one of us took one step to help one person that would make 350,000 steps towards an improved social outcome.”

The summit’s keynote speaker, Dr Gregory Ellison, is a professor at Emory University, Atlanta, and founder of “Fearless Dialogues”, described as “a grassroots initiative committed to creating spaces for hard, heartfelt conversations between community thought leaders that help see gifts in people, hear values in stories and work toward transformation and change in self and others.”

Dr Ellison is also author of “Cut Dead But Still Alive: Caring for African American Young Men,” a book that calls for community members to get involved in bringing about social transformation. The summit organisers plan to apply these principles of care and action in the Bahamas.

Dr Bernard Nottage, National Security Minister, will open the summit and Melanie Griffin, Social Services Minister, will also speak.

The summit will offer six courses – Proactive Youth Leadership Development, 7 Habits for Highly Effective Families, Self Esteem for Young Girls, Community Leadership Transformation, Fearless Dialogues, and Grief Recovery – to be introduced in upcoming months by two community hubs established in Bain and Grants Town and the Fox Hill area.

Further, the organisation will hold a follow-up feedback and consultation support group in January 2015 to encourage people to share reports of community models that have been successful.