Avia Ustanny, Gleaner Writer

Osmond Farquharson ... life changed by charity organisation. - Contributed

In Rae Town, where Osmond Farquharson resides, the Multi-Care Foundation operates several programmes to keep children off the streets.

Now a 20-year-old registry clerk at the Heart Trust/NTA in Kingston, Farquharson credits the positive trend in his life to the confidence gained in the sports programme at MultiCare.

He started with the philanthropic organisation in 1998 as a third-form student at Calabar High School, playing basketball, softball and volleyball.

After his first year in the programme, the youngster became a junior, then senior counsellor.

"It changed my life," he asserts. "In terms of confidence, I would say that it has helped me to find myself. Through sports, I now know my strengths and weaknesses."

Leaving Calabar High with six CXC and four GCE A'Level subjects, Osmond now plays basketball for Jamaica Junior Team and also for the Aqua Youth Club in Kingston.

"I am focused on basketball and I want to pursue a career as a mechanical engineer and an architect. I want to go back to school next September," he told The Sunday Gleaner.

Replacing the culture of violence

According to MultiCare's programme director Elizabeth Campbell, between May and September 2006, the foundation has spent some $5 million on core programmes in sports and the visual and performing arts in the 31 MultiCare-assisted schools and in community programmes.

"We adopt a holistic approach to child development using sports and the visual and performing arts as a catalyst to create a culture of peaceful coexistence, tolerance and understanding to replace the culture of violence," Campbell explains.

The MultiCare Foundation was started in 1993 under the chairmanship of Dr. Aaron Matalon, O.J., in response to "rising levels of crime and violence, and as a solution to the alienation and marginalisation of our young people."

In addition to providing help with tuition fees and locating a job after graduation, Osmond Farquharson states that the MultiCare programme helped him on the job as well, as "it teaches you to accept persons for who they are and how to work out differences. I work in the personnel and administrative departments where you need to be a people person, you need not to be ticked off easily".

He added: "In the area of problem solving, MultiCare has helped me a lot. Without MultiCare maybe I would be less focused and less confident. The MultiCare definition of a winner is not one who overcomes all odds, instead winning is teamwork and learning more and more about the sport."

Encourages others

He loves basketball, and is the point guard on the national junior team, which he says fulfils a role similar to the central processing unit in a computer.

"You can't be selfish. You must motivate the team," he comments.

Early in the mornings, long before he is expected to appear on the job, he trains at Breezy Castle downtown Kingston.

Farquharson says his role model is sister, Melissa, a final-year student in mechanical engineering at the University of Technology and who also taught him to play basketball.

He pays special thanks to personal trainer at MultiCare, Kirk Morris, and a host of others who have been helpful over the years.

He concluded: "I would encourage others in Rae town to get involved in MultiCare. In the summer, the children are gambling, smoking and idling. Going to MultiCare helps to develop their morale, helps them to know that they can be something in life in spite of the fact that they come from a garrison community."