EQ Barbados, a personal development initiative which seeks to equip some 50 000 Barbadians over the next five years in improving their emotional intelligence so they can live more meaningful lives, has been launched.
The Media Launch of EQ Barbados took place in the BIDC Building in the Harbour Industrial Estate in St. Michael yesterday. Toney Olton, founder of The Potter Centre, who now serves as its Executive Director and Principal Consultant, stressed that the aim is to have a critical mass of 50 000 emotionally intelligent young Barbadians, by 2025.
Emotional intelligence he says, is a proven construct for enhancing personal and inter-personal relationships. Its key skills are emotional literacy, recognition of one’s own patterns, consequential thinking, delayed gratification, intrinsic motivation, optimism, empathy and service.
“Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is the skills to create and sustain an optimal relationship with self and others. Emotional intelligence is being smart with feelings. This means paying attention to emotions and understanding them, then using that insight to make the best possible decisions,” Olton remarked.
Olton pointed out that too many Barbadian young people are living today without a compelling sense of personal identity, purpose, belonging or hope and this is evident given the lawlessness consistently being reported in the media, concerns about bullying amongst young people that are being expressed, the recent spike in the number of murders locally, the increase in the abuse of illicit drugs, the declining average age of the prison population and the reported increases of young people presenting for psychological and psychiatric evaluation and care.
“Too many of our young people lack the awareness and tools to successfully navigate the social and economic complexity and dynamics of the present age,” Olton maintained, while stressing that many are driven by their emotions and react in a negative manner, even as evidenced with the level of crime and violence being seen.
“There are any number of circumstances that are evidence that we are a society that in large measure, is adrift,” he stressed.
As such, he noted that The Potter Centre will train 500 Barbadians in the first instance and they will in turn be required to undergo “train-the-trainer” training, to empower 100 fellow citizens. The emotional intelligence training will first target those persons who can help others grow, such as teachers, youth and community workers, churches and leaders of non-governmental organisations. The training is open to Barbadian youth ages 11 to 35 and will be facilitated by The Potter Centre, which has launched EQ Barbados to coincide with its 21st anniversary. By April of this year, EQ Barbados will be fully up and running and the public will be engaged via social media, as well as an online platform. There will also be a launch of EQ Caribbean later in October this year, for a more regional reach. Interested persons will be able to visit www.thepottercentre.com going forward, for more detailed information. (RSM)
