By Desmond Brown ST. JOHN’S, Antigua, Jan 25 2015, CNS – Michael Joseph is the President of the Antigua & Barbuda Red Cross; International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies Youth Commission Member; University of the West Indies Student; and a Pharmacist.
He first became interested in the idea of volunteerism at the age of 10 years old but he’s not sure what drove his ambition to do that at such a tender age and he never regretted it for a second in his life.
As the first of five siblings, Michael said this gave him a level of responsibility that prepared him for a world that is anything but sympathetic.
“It strengthens you; hardens you; but most importantly it grows you and this I owe my early mental maturity to.”
As the years flew by his involvement and devotion grew deeper for volunteerism, luck would have it that Michael always found himself in the company of Red Cross. Perhaps it was this deep subconscious love for humanitarian work or maybe it’s what’s written in the stars as his destiny. No matter where time and space took him, he always found his way back to the comfort of Red Cross.
Over the years, Red Cross has allowed him to be engaged in many critical and diverse areas of developing the Antiguan society. From training youths about HIV & AIDS; to coordinating the local relief efforts after the 2011 passing of Hurricane Earl; to his most recent project, Club LYFE, which is a blood donation programme geared towards supporting the Ministry of Health and the local hospital in maintaining and improving their blood supply.
The beginning of 2015 proved to be a historic year for Michael. After many hours of deliberation and discussion, he decided to contest the Antigua & Barbuda Red Cross elections and was successfully elected to the post of President; making him the youngest President ever to be elected in the International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies.
1. What do you love most about the Caribbean? I love the fresh open air, the freedom to walk to the beach any time I like. I love to discover the hidden treasures of the Islands’ hike trails, and the magnificent panoramic views spanning from the Atlantic Ocean to where it fuses with the Caribbean Sea. As a people we spend so much time working that we forget to live and I do believe that the Caribbean offers the life worth living. The irony of Caribbean lifestyle is that tourists spend their lives working to come retire here and locals spend their lives working to get away. For me, I’m just trying to leave a better Caribbean behind than how I met it.
2. What brings you the greatest joy? Helping people brings me the greatest joy. I don’t mean helping people because they want me to but I mean helping people because they need me to. I like knowing that I bring joy to the hopeless, a smile to the downtrodden and a voice to the voiceless. My craving is for that warm feeling of satisfaction that you get in the bellows of your stomach when you bring a smile to the face of a person on their darkest of days; when you give a person a purpose to go on and you show them something that they’ve never seen. This for me is true satisfaction!
3. What is the best advice you’ve been given? When I was a child my mother told me, “You can be anything you want to be. You just have to want it bad enough and work for it hard enough and no one or nothing can stop you from achieving it.” These words have been my inspiration to challenge every boundary that has been set on me.
4. What is on your bookshelf? My bookshelf is very small as my lifestyle doesn’t permit me to read novels like I use to as a child. I’m confined to the internet when I need a book or the water-downed versions of movies when they are released. However, I do have the entire Harry Potter series, a few John Grisham’s, ‘Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom’ (next up to read) and my favorite in recent times is ‘Against A Tide of Evil by Mukesh Kapila’. I think I love ‘Against a Tide of Evil’ so much because it’s based on the true story of the 2003 Genocide of the Sudanese people and this caught my humanitarian spirit.
5. What charity do you support? I support the Antigua & Barbuda Red Cross and by extension the International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies. The two bodies form part of the largest humanitarian organisation in the world and are engaged on all fronts to tackle the many humanitarian challenges that exist.
6. What is on your bucket list? I have the crazy, adventurous, heart pounding adrenaline stuff such as skydiving, bungee jumping, snowboarding, hiking to the top of Mount Everest, rock climbing and travelling to the moon and then I have the more at heart stuff like building my mom a house, start and build my own business and retire at 45 years so I can enjoy the rest of my life relaxing and concentrating more on helping the world’s most vulnerable.
7. What is on your perennial to-do list? My perennial to-do list would include three things:
- Develop my community of birth to be a model for others to idolise, where it would not be referred to as the ‘ghetto’ where stories of fear and horror are associated to the name but instead one that sets a tone for safety, security and development.
- Carry the name of Antigua & Barbuda to every corner of the world and show that although we are small we are capable of being engaged in all discussions and when our voices are heard that it is seen as a voice that deserves the respect of attentive focus.
- Strengthen the International Red Cross & Red Crescent in such a way that we will be the key driving force to deliver peace in the harshest of territories.
8. Who are your Caribbean heroes? I don’t do heroes but if I had to choose it would be firstly my mother as I think she’s just amazing for raising five children single handedly coming from one of the roughest communities and not in the best of times but still she managed to make ends meet. Secondly, the Reggae Icon, Bob Marley, as he proved to me that peace was worth dying for when after being shot he performed two days after and said, “The people that are making this world worse don’t take a day off, how can I?” That’s inspiration for me. Those are heroic characteristics.
9. Who is on the guest list for your ideal dinner party? Jose Mujica, Uraguay President who has been dubbed the poorest President in the world because he gives 90 percent of his earnings to charity. I have so many questions for him but he would definitely get the first invitation as he has literally put his people first. I would also invite President Obama, Former US President Bill Clinton, Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, Oprah Winfrey and Fidel Castro. I have quite a few questions for them as they are all truly inspiring individuals.
10. What quote do you live by? There are two quotes I live by:
- “What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us” by Ralph Waldo Emerson. This says to me that our true potential for unlocking or greatest of gifts are dependent on whether we are able to dig deep within ourselves and retrieve it.
- “Be the change you want to see in the world” by Mahatma Ghandi. If more people are good then the world will be good. The same principle applies for peace and everything else you dream of in a peaceful and conflict free world.
11. What is one thing people would be surprised to know about you? People would be surprised to know that I was once on a banned/ blacklist by the Chinese Government. The Chinese refused to ever offer me any opportunities funded by the Chinese Government for failure to arrive in China. This was of course a diplomatic nightmare as my role in Red Cross can at any point take me anywhere around the world. Thankfully with the involvement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs this ban was removed.
12. What is one thing you wish you knew when you were younger? This is a funny question as I am already so young. However, I will say that I live my life like tomorrow will be my last so I am very satisfied with the decisions I have made. I do believe I have accomplished a lot. Perhaps singing may be the one area I would hone my skills in on.
13. What would you want to say to the Caribbean about any one of these: Agriculture, Arts & Culture, Climate Change, HIV/AIDS, Tourism? As an individual with a background in Healthcare, it has become apparent that many of our countries have lost sight of how deadly and prevalent HIV/AIDS still is. Many of the large donor organisations continue to cut funding for critical preventative and treatment measures for this illness. As concerned citizens we must continue to educate and mobilise the necessary resources to achieve zero. HIV/AIDS is all of our business and until we all contribute then we will all be at risk.
14. Any final words? In today’s society it is so easy for us to lose interest in what doesn’t directly affect us. We have been conditioned to care about only what distorts our realm of comfort. The days of being your brother’s keeper seems archaic and even in extreme cases, delusional, when we see how easily we turn a blind eye to a neighbor in need because it would put us five minutes off our path; then we wonder why on our rainiest days there is no one to offer safe haven under the ease and comfort of their umbrella. We quickly blame society for our misfortunes and fail to take any responsibility for sharing the same dreadful hospitality to those who blame us for their misfortunes. It’s a viscous cycle we’ve locked ourselves into. We continue to let trivial positions such as religion, sports, politics and class fragment the one common thing we all want; to be happy and live in peace. The great news is, we don’t have to and this doesn’t have to be a norm. The choice to be different and do different is up to each and every one of us. We have a responsibility to ensure that we leave a world fit to live in for the children of our children. Let’s change our society, but it must start with YOU!
