By G.A. Dwyer Astaphan
The term “Ivy League” became known after the formation in 1954 of the NCAA Division 1 Athletic Conference in the United States, and it was used to describe a grouping of eight universities situated in the Northeastern United States.
The eight are: The University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Princeton University, Harvard University and Yale University.
But in quick time, the term was used beyond athletics to describe the academic excellence and the best traditions and values of American tertiary education as exemplified by these oldest and most prestigious of universities in that country.
Their great reputations are enhanced in no small measure by the fact that as many as 14 of the 44 US Presidents to date, including the Honourable Barack Obama, as well as scores upon scores of other highly successful people, in all areas of human endeavour, have been Ivy Leaguers.
Clearly, their graduates are in high demand.
So it should come as no surprise, therefore, that so many people yearn to be enrolled in one of these elite institutions of learning.
PAM’s leader, Mr. Lindsey Grant, is a Harvard graduate, as is Dr. Andrea Douglas, daughter of Prime Minister Dr. Denzil Douglas. And I am told that Denzil Douglas Jr. is presently a student at Harvard.
Ivy Leaguers all. And that is wonderful.
But we have our own ‘Ivy League’ here in St. Kitts. An ‘Ivy League’ with a difference. One whose graduates will be sought after, yes, but not to be given leadership and authority. Instead, they will be sought after to be slammed by the long arm of the law, in the name of order.
The Ivy League of St. Kitts was formed in 2010, very recently, and it has just one graduate for the moment.
Her name is Ivy Adams.
Ivy is a micro-entrepreneur. She cooks and sells food. She had been selling on the sidewalks, encouraged in no small measure by the pre Cricket World Cup 2007 hype.
She started out on Fort Street outside Dominos, and she was told to move. She obeyed.
She went outside Royal Bank and she was again told to move. Again she obeyed.
The she went to the Amina Market area where she faced pressure, so she moved to the Bay Road outside the National Museum building.
And her table was arrested. So she started walking about with her food, trying to make a dollar.
But it made her unwell. And it was while she was at home trying to ‘catch herself’ that the thought of setting up on the Basseterre Bypass Road (BBR) came to her.
So she moved to the BBR, just above Project Strong in the Taylors Village area. Apparently she was warned against being there but she did not heed the warning. And on Friday, May 7th, 2010, she was finally removed, and her food and other things taken away.
(As an aside, I hope that the rumour which I am hearing about renaming the BBR in honour of a certain person and erecting his statue at the roundabout between the Gas Station and the spot from which Ivy was ejected is not true).
Now, let me say this. I do not like the idea of sidewalks and parking spots in downtown Basseterre being clogged up by vendors. It creates a problem from the perspectives of safety, health, security, ease of flow of both pedestrian and vehicular traffic, and aesthetics.
At the same time, these folks who are on the streets selling are not doing so with the intention of being criminals. Most of them cannot get work in either the public or the private sector, and they can’t afford the rents of downtown Basseterre. Some have retired or resigned from their jobs and are out there looking to make their penny, rather than begging, or stealing it.
And all of them are, admirably, demonstrating their entrepreneurship.
So, yes, the problem does indeed need to be addressed.
But the solution does not lie in simply throwing them off the streets. Instead, it requires a plan which equally recognizes both their plight and their potential, and which appreciates the benefits to them and to our overall economic and social stability of providing an orderly, enabling and empowering environment for the development and success of small business in the country.
Such a plan must, among other things, include finding appropriate space, training, financing, business and management counselling, and other reasonable support, for these folks.
And it can also incorporate the use of a specifically designated area, or areas, in town for these activities. But this would require careful thought, exhaustive public consultation and strict management.
During my days as Minister of Tourism and Commerce, we tried to get the ball rolling. We were able to create spaces for over 100 micro-entrepreneurs as well as training and motivational sessions, and pointing them to the Small Enterprise Development Unit (SEDU) where, I am told, in just four years, the loan portfolio increased by nearly 70%.
But no system will work when, in one breath, people are discouraged from selling on the streets, and in the next (Carnival, Cricket World Cup, Music Festival-and on these occasions, we even see people from other countries being allowed to come into our country and sell stuff on our streets), a virtual free-for-all is encouraged.
And we cannot expect our streets to be meccas of order, tidiness and efficient traffic flows and traffic management when nearly every Friday (by far the busiest day of the week) parts of downtown Basseterre are blocked off for some unnecessary reason or the other.
Indeed, how can we expect order in Basseterre when that most sacred landmark, Independence Square, is so frequently disrespected and defiled?
Meanwhile, as Ivy is chased off the street and off the BBR, others remain.
How many of them have received letters like the one which she received? Are they not to be members of our Ivy League, or is it that Ivy is just the first? Are the authorities using her as a guinea pig, testing the waters, and looking to pounce on the others, now that the elections are over?
What about persons who actually own or rent space downtown yet they too go to the sidewalks from time to time to sell? Are they exempt from joining the Ivy League?
And while we are thinking of people who may be offending the law by doing certain things in public places, do the authorities plan any action against people who have wreaked so much havoc to our coastline and marsh ecosystems between Frigate Bay and the Southeast Peninsula, and who have blocked, in part or in whole, free access by the public to beaches? Are they not to be sent to the Ivy League?
Further, what about those people who come into St. Kitts and set up business illegally, and those who hire foreigners either illegally or without the slightest concern for locals and their need for employment in their own country, thereby creating greater pressure and pushing even more people onto the street? What plans do the authorities have for such offenders? Do they have any appetite to punish them, or is their appetite reserved only for the Ivy Adamses of this world?
What about all of those billboards that ugly up the Frigate Bay Road and elsewhere in St. Kitts, and create a real danger in case a strong wind blows our way? Was permission granted for those billboards to be erected? And if not, why have their owners not gotten letters of introduction to the Ivy League, as Ivy Adams has?
What about the signs on the Frigate Bay Golf Course describing it as “private property”? Are the persons responsible for posting those signs not to be sent to the Ivy League like Ivy Adams has been? Or is it that the Golf Course is no longer owned by the people of this country and we don’t know about it?
And what about the people who have built in Frigate Bay and elsewhere in breach of the set-back regulations, thereby wrongly taking in, and depriving the public of, land? Are they too big to be sent to the Ivy League?
Whomsoever‘s mission it is to clean up St. Kitts will have to do a thorough, transparent and fair job. Anything else will be bad news for the cleaner and for the country. Because our Ivy League of pariahs could well become our Ivy League of game changers.
And maybe it will. Maybe Ivy Adams will go down in history as a wake-up call for this country.
