Good morning to every reader. I am Miss Violet. I shall be more brief today than I was yesterday because I have a Sabbath School class to prepare for tomorrow and a granddaughter who expects me at four o’clock for tea. But there is much to address, and I shall address it with my usual directness.

I. On the Prime Minister’s Warning

Prime Minister Mottley has said, publicly this week, that “the world is sliding backwards.” I wish to commend her for the clarity of this statement, and I wish also to say the following to my readers:

When a head of government speaks in these terms, she is not performing for the cameras. She is reporting what she has seen in rooms that are closed to the rest of us — rooms where treaties are negotiated, where climate finance is disbursed or withheld, where the balance between large nations and small is measured in metrics that ordinary citizens do not encounter.

Those of you who have lived long enough to remember the 1970s will recognise this feeling. There was a similar sliding backwards then, although the specifics were different. What the 1970s taught those of us who were adults at the time was this: small nations that organise themselves carefully, and speak with one voice, can have effects on larger nations that exceed the sum of their individual weights.

The Bridgetown Initiative — which Mottley has championed for five years now — is exactly such an instrument. It has moved the needle on climate finance at multilateral institutions. It is a demonstration of what principled coordination can achieve.

I ask my readers not to despair at the Prime Minister’s warning. I ask instead that you read it as an invitation: this is a time when citizens can, and should, pay attention to foreign policy. Call your member of Parliament. Read the Prime Minister’s speeches. Know what positions Barbados is taking in international fora. A small country that is awake is a small country that cannot be ignored.

II. On the Young Man and the Key

A twenty-year-old has been remanded to Dodds Prison on charges of stealing a key and a motor van. I do not know this young man. I do not know the particulars of his offence. I do know that the decision before the magistrate was whether to grant bail, and the magistrate declined, and now a twenty-year-old is beginning his life behind walls.

I shall speak to the parents, uncles, aunties, and godparents of twenty-year-old men who may be drifting.

If the young man in your household is beginning to make choices you know are wrong — please do not wait for the court system to intervene. The court system is not a corrective institution. It is a containment institution. It will not produce the young man you hoped he would be. It will only deliver him back to you, eventually, in worse condition.

The work of redirection happens at home, in the community, in the church, in the school, in the mentorship programmes that do exist in this country but which are under-resourced and often under-attended. Please — and I say please with all the gravity of an old woman who has seen what I have seen — please find that young man before the magistrate has to.

And to those of my readers who have the capacity to support a mentorship organisation — the Male Empowerment Network, the Community Skills Initiative, the Church-based fellowships that work with at-risk youth — your donation of time or resources this month will produce more return than any investment you can make in the stock market.

III. On Oistins

The Oistins Fish Festival requires reform. Senator Walters is correct on this point. I do not often agree with the opposition, as my readers know, but I agree with them here.

I shall add one observation that has not, in my reading, appeared in the broader discussion.

Oistins is cultural infrastructure. The same way the Careenage is cultural infrastructure, the same way Kensington Oval is, the same way the Garrison is. When cultural infrastructure is allowed to deteriorate, it does not simply fall into disrepair in a neutral way. It signals something to the population — that the traditions encoded in that infrastructure are not valued.

Oistins, at its peak, was where ordinary Bajans, ordinary tourists, and ordinary fishermen shared a table. It was one of the few genuinely cross-class social spaces in our country. Its decline is not merely a tourism problem or a vendor-profit problem. It is a sign that we have become less willing, as a society, to maintain the spaces where we encounter one another.

The rethink must be substantive. Increased security, improved lighting, upgraded vendor infrastructure, renewed marketing — these are the first level of intervention. The deeper question is whether the Ministry of Culture will treat Oistins with the institutional seriousness that a cultural landmark requires. To date, it has not. I hope this changes.

IV. On Emily Odwin

I wish to take a moment to salute Emily Odwin, whose performance at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur is a genuine national achievement.

I have been a teacher for forty-one years. I know what it takes for a young person from a small country to compete at an international level. It requires discipline of a kind that the young person must cultivate internally, because the external structures supporting her are almost always insufficient.

I extend my congratulations to Emily, to her family, to her coach, and to the Barbados Golf Association for their part in her preparation. I also say to the Ministry of Sport — a young woman like Emily should not have to depend on family resources to reach Augusta. The country should be contributing materially. If we are serious about athlete development, we must resource it. If we are not, we must stop claiming to be serious.

V. On the Mental Health Waiting List

I close with what I said yesterday and repeat today, because the matter requires repetition.

Forty percent of calls to the national mental health helpline are coming from our children. The waiting list at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for child and adolescent psychiatry is reportedly now four to six months.

If your grandchild, niece, nephew, or child tells you they are struggling — please do not wait for the appointment. Call the Wellness Centre at Cave Hill. Call the private practitioners in Warrens. Reach out to the school counsellor and insist on a session this week. Do not be polite. Do not assume the system will move faster because you are patient. The system will not.

The child who reaches out and is met with waiting may, in that waiting, reach a place from which reaching out again becomes impossible. I have taught long enough to know what that looks like when it happens. I do not wish to know it again.

VI. In Conclusion

A Saturday morning. A Prime Minister warning. A young man in Dodds. A festival requiring reform. A golfer in Georgia. A child, somewhere in this country, waiting for help.

These are the concerns of the week. I commend them to your attention. I wish you a peaceful Sabbath, if you observe one. I wish you a thoughtful weekend, if you do not.

Good morning.

— Miss Violet