Photos & Video: Brothers Of Bermuda Launched

March 3, 2016

Brothers of Bermuda, a new organization on the island, held its inaugural event today [Mar 3], at The Cathedral Hall, located on Church Street, with local dignitaries, educators, church pastors and businessmen, as well as members of the public attending the event.

Brothers Of Bermuda Launch

A spokesperson for the group previously said, “The group is a new organization, made up of professional and laymen from all walks of life, who are attempting to provide support to men by providing spiritual, financial, legal, medical, occupation, education, social, in fact all facets of life that affects the daily lives of men, young and old, here in Bermuda, with aspiration of one day, being able to provide this initiative worldwide.”

At the event, Brothers of Bermuda honored all Senior Schools’ Head Boys and Deputy Head Boys. The schools included, CedarBridge Academy, Bermuda Institute, Warwick Academy, Berkeley Institute, Saltus Grammar School, and Mount St. Agnes.

Brothers of Bermuda co-founder, Mr. Rollin Nathan said, “Well, I want to say a pleasant good afternoon to everyone. Governor, Premier, Ministers, I want to welcome you. Family, friends, recipients and some really handsome young gentlemen over here, welcome.

“Today we are here to launch a very unique program. The program might be the first you have seen this one in Bermuda. We recognize that the greatest need of the world is not money, but actually men. Real men.

“Oftentimes, that’s the least-recognized group in any country. It’s a world problem. You’ll hear that most men are no good. Most violence, 97% of violence against humanity is done by men, as in male. Families are destroyed by male. Single fathers, single parents’ home with lack of fathers, and young men go astray. Men are in serious shortage. Yet, the only way men receive is in a hospital or in a prison.

“In looking at that model, we have decided that we will form a group in Bermuda which we intend to take it worldwide. Bermuda is that kind of place where we are smart enough, small enough, unique enough to teach the world a few things. We are going to form, it has already been formed, an organization called Brothers of Bermuda.

“Men of all race, size, color, young men, old men, and we’re going to bond together. When we bond together we’re going to assist every man, every man as in his mental state, his spiritual state, his financial state, and educational state. Whatever state he’s in, we’re going to assist him and we’re going to mentor him at any age to his greatest potential.

“We’re are going to actually try to reverse the number of people that go into prisons. If they’re in there, we’re going to work with them to come out and find something progressive to do. Today, the launch of the Brothers’ program is actually very unique.

“We will only assist males at this time. We recognize that’s the group, that’s the least paid attention to, what create the most problem in any society. It costs the society more, but yet we have never stopped to look why and assist them over their challenges.

“First, we will get with the young men in the schools and we will mentor them. We have talked to corporations, all the services of government, I’ve talked to heads of departments. How about mentoring some of these men through your program EMT?

“Say, if I come to CedarBridge and I ask them, “Would like to be an EMT?” “What is that?” “Okay, let’s go find out. I’ll take you to the hospital. We’ll meet with Mr. Brangman and we’ll go through the program. We’ll go to the fire department. We’ll go to the hotel. We’ll introduce you to male nurses if you want to be a nurse. I will mentor you all the way to university and to the job.

“We decide we will start with the young men and carry it over. We’ll go to the seniors next. It will be the seniors that are at home, retired, redundant and we’ll help them to find jobs in the community. If not, we know that there are a lot of seniors they do not have any insurance. What we will do, we have liaised with hospitals, professionals, doctors, dentists, lawyers and we will assist them in whatever need they have.

“Say if a senior has a need, he needs his grass cut, the Brothers will see to it that it gets cut. If there is a health issue, we have doctors on board who are willing to volunteer their time and energy to make sure that they are taken care of.

“We have spent hundreds of hours so far in this program trying to find the necessary people to be in place to make sure we can make sure that all the men in Bermuda, street men, after the Premiers. If the Premier needs a prayer, we have many pastors in the Brotherhood during this time of trouble we can come.

“As a Premier with the difficulty of this country, sometimes he doesn’t say, and we don’t think that he does. We should surround him and pray for him to give him strength. That is what we will do.”

Mr. Nathan went on to introduce CedarBridge Academy Head Boy Jordan Trott who addressed the gathered crowd followed by Premier Michael Dunkley and Bishop Nicholas Dill.

Before calling on Mr. Allan Hunt to introduce the young men to receive their awards from Premier Dunkley, Mr. Nathan said, “In order to launch this program, we have to have a beginning. My thoughts and the organization’s thoughts are, let’s start with the young men.

“Gentlemen, I want to first say congratulations to you for standing above and beyond the average.

“It’s easy to be normal. It’s easy to be like the rest. To be a good leader, to be a good leader you have to stand above and beyond. You have to see yourself as up so you can lift others up. If you’re down there, there’s nowhere you can take them but down.

“I’m happy today to introduce this program with the honoring of all these young men from our high schools. These are the head boys and deputy head boys of our senior schools.”

Statement by CedarBridge Academy Head Boy Jordan Simmons-Trott:

Good day one and all. My name is Jordan Kenneth Simmons-Trott and I attend the wonderful school of CedarBridge Academy where I am the head boy. First I will like to address my brothers here and say well done. Well done. I know that many of you have sacrificed much, have given up a lot of your time and dedicated yourself to your work to achieve the positions that you have. You all are truly blessed.

I want for us to embrace those who are here with us today, to accept them, to our older gentlemen who are here to recognize us of all the greatness that we have accomplished. I know that together that all of us in here, we can do our very best to bring up Bermuda’s young males. God bless and thank you.

Statement by Premier Michael Dunkley:

Good afternoon, your Excellency, Senator Ball, all invited guests. Let us pray. I do need prayer, so let’s have it right now. Thank you Bishop for opening up your doors to this wonderful church hall here this morning.

I’m actually very honored and humbled to be here. I say that for two specific reasons. I’m honored and humbled to be around individuals who have stepped forward to develop this charity for the most worthy cause.

I realize that you all have busy lives. You all have families to attend to, careers to look at, responsibilities to take care of. More importantly, just like you, they have challenges or issues that they have to deal with.

You have fine men who have stepped forward to make a difference, to serve the community, to mentor, to help, to ask and get questions answered. You’ve committed your time. Just as importantly, and more importantly, you’ve committed your experience. The wealth of knowledge that each one of them has developed through their growing years.

They’ve been very successful. They’ve also made some mistakes which they’ve lived and learned from to move forward. Thank you to all of you, Brothers of Bermuda, for stepping forward and doing something that is most needed and a necessity in our community. I’m honored and humbled also to be here with fine young men. We have many challenges in Bermuda and throughout the world. That’s not going to change.

The world has been going around for many, many years and challenges continue to come and go. We resolve and sort those challenges out by people getting involved and doing something about it, but being prepared to be part of the solution and not just part of the problem.

I congratulate you fine young men for stepping forward and realizing that there is so much to learn. There are people who have walked in the sand and put their footprints on that sand before you who are willing to give something back.

I’m honored and humbled to be here and I look forward to seeing the progress. I thank all of you brothers for stepping forward. It might seem like a mammoth task. When you make progress in small increments, you’ll be surprised just how rewarding it is.

Congratulations to all of you and best of luck. One of you can come to take this position real soon if you want.

Statement by Bishop Nicholas Dill:

It’s a great privilege to be able to come with you and to stand as a Brother, although I see that I’m the only one wearing a black shirt today. I’m not quite sure why that is. Maybe it’s because of the state of my heart. I need more help than anybody.

When Roland came to explain his vision for this new group, I was so impressed by his passion and his determination. I recall first going out to a feeding program that we were running at church and talking to some of the guys at Curving Avenue, and to hear young men think that they have got nothing to dream for and no capacity to find the dreams that they are hoping for in the first place.

That sense of hopelessness to have an organization that can help bring hope back into men’s lives and to stand alongside them, walk alongside them, see them, acknowledge them, hear what they have say. As has already been said, we’re all in this together.

One of the earliest stories of the Bible is about family dysfunction between a man and a woman initially, Adam and Eve, blaming each other. The very next thing that happens is two brothers, Cain and Abel who kill. Cain kills his brother Abel because he’s jealous.

When God interacts with Cain and says, “Where’s your brother?” He says, “Well am I my brother’s keeper?” He was trying to push back and say I’ve got nothing to do with him or anything that he represents.

That is discouragement. That is well it actually led to murder. The ability to encourage and to uphold and to support one another, that’s where change happens. It’s so easy to tear each other down. We see this in our streets today. We’re seeing it all around us as we look at the news.

It’s very easy for us to become divided. By mutual encouragement and by constant support and with the strength that God provides, we can step out of ourselves and see our brothers as they are and walk with them. That’s what I’m going to be praying for.

Click to enlarge photos: