Journalism a passion for PM youth awardee
He first entered the field not because he particularly loved writing, but because he needed an avenue to vent his frustrations. Today, three years later, Brandon Allwood is the president of the Observer’s TEENage Writers’ Club and a proud recipient of the Prime Minister’s Youth award for his contribution to journalism.
The award was presented in a ceremony at Emancipation Park on December 2, the climax to Youth Month.
“I got into journalism because of difficulties at home. I needed a forum to express myself and TEENage provided it,” he said, pointing to communication problems between him and his mother and brother.
“It is now a passion,” he added.
Having fulfilled that need, Allwood began honing his craft and is delighted that his work has attracted national attention, especially since he is still a teen.
“It feels great to be recognised nationally and to be honoured like that. It’s only an indication that I’ve begun something and not that I’m done, so everybody in Jamaica can look out for more,” he says proudly.
Allwood joined the TEENage club in 2004 as a writer. He soon became editor of his brainchild, the Leisure section. Within the same year, he was promoted to deputy quarterly editor then club vice-president and was elected the club’s president two years ago.
Other than writing and editing for the club, Brandon says he has developed other talents – he paginates, takes photographs and edits photos using the Adobe Photoshop computer programme.
“I will stop writing for it (TEENage) eventually, but I will not leave it. I will be with it for life in terms of planning, coordinating or just submitting ideas.
This year’s nomination for the premier award for Jamaican young people was Brandon’s second, the first having been in 2005 when he was 16. He didn’t win then, but has no regrets at the outcome.
“I wasn’t disappointed because I was the youngest nominee there, [and] there was a spectacular set of qualified young people that year,” he told Sunday Observer.
In addition to being a journalist, the Kingston College graduate is a motivational speaker and a youth advocate.
“Advocacy is something that has always been close to me in terms of representing people and the sort of feeling you get from doing that. That is my high. It’s my drug,” he explains.
He was trained by the Jamaica Coalition on the Rights of the Child at the age of 14, but Allwood remembers speaking up on behalf of his fellow students while he was just a lad at Vaz Preparatory.
He remembers being punished for it too, but says that didn’t stop him because he felt the need to defend his classmates.
And so began his love affair with the rights of the child and the issues surrounding them. He took it several steps further while a student at Kingston College and became a peer counsellor and student representative, a journey which has taken him to international conferences in Norway and Switzerland.
Those experiences he says, were enriching, particularly the one in Switzerland where he submitted most of the points that were discussed at the United Nations Day of general discussion on Child Rights in September 2006.
“It quenched a thirst of mine to get issues that affect Jamaican children on the international stage for discussion. It was also great for me to hear how they were trying to solve similar problems in other countries like Mexico where they recently started free tuition in schools,” he says.
As accomplished as he is to date, the political science freshman at the University of the West Indies says he’s not yet finished.
“I am going to change my major to Liberal Studies because I find that my interests transcend a normal specialisation,” he tells the Sunday Observer.
“I’m going to do law eventually, but I wanted to do another Bachelor’s first to explore my intellectual curiosity,” says Allwood, adding that he plans to practise humanitarian law for roughly four years before going into representational politics.