Jerome Pinder (http://www.weblogbahamas.com)
Each day my drive to work takes me down Bernard Road. Almost on a daily basis I sit in bumper to bumper traffic and watch school children throw trash on the side of the road. Take a drive down Bernard Road heading west, both in the front of L W Young and beyond the roadside is littered with cans, bottles and fast food containers. In addition, you often see reports in The Tribune with photos of garbage being dumped in various locations throughout the island, not to mention the mess you often see on beach fronts after Public Holiday cookouts.
I commend the Government on their efforts to keep the island clean. I often see work crews along major roadways raking and sweeping the sides of the road. However, their efforts are futile unless we change the mindset of people.
What does it say about us as a people, when you have teenage kids who think nothing of throwing trash on the side of the road as they walk to school. What sense of pride do they have about themselves and their country. Although all are not guilty, there are enough culprits to keep the roadside dirty.
I suppose that having pride in themselves and their country is not being taught at home or in school. Perhaps its time to make the students clean up around their campuses. After all, if they have no concern about littering our little island in broad daylight with onlookers in every direction, do you think they are concerned about the public education system having a "D" average.
It is time to clean-up this country from the ground up. If we cannot win on changing the small things, we will never tackle the larger problems.
