13 November 2007 | The Royal Gazette

Cheers and tears erupted as the first graduates of the Mirrors intense residential programme ran into the Berkeley Institute auditorium on Saturday.

More than 300 members of the public attended the homecoming event for the 37 teenagers who completed the life affirming residential programme of the programme.

Mirrors is not a boot camp, but instead offers the hand up that at-risk teenagers need, say those committed to the programme.

As they took to the stage the teenagers — whom The Royal Gazette has chosen not to name — discussed problems they have had with family members and at school more than the years.

"From day one I said I didn't want to be here but this is the best thing Bermuda has ever done for its youth," one young man said. "This programme was the most difficult thing I have done but it has changed my life."

"I was always told I wasn't good enough," another young man said, choking back tears. "But this programme taught me I was and that I can't change what has happened but I can change my attitude.

"We learned that 'it is what it is' but that I can do anything I put my mind to. These people are my family now and I don't know what I would do without them." MORE! »