“Do not let your circumstances drag you down. “
This was the encouragement given to the Grade 12 graduating students of Lae Secondary School yesterday by the acting Prime Minister and Lae MP, John Rosso.
428 grade 12 students graduated yesterday under the theme: ‘Quality citizens through quality education’.
While speaking to them, Rosso outlined the values that will guide them in their future endeavour; perseverance, dedication, determination, hard work, desire, discipline and loyalty.
“That dream that you sit and decide; ‘I want to be a doctor, I will fly the plane one day, I will be a police officer, I want to do this’. Don’t let your dreams die. Do not let it be affected by your choices in life,” he stated.
““If you dream big enough, if you dream high enough, you will one day fly a plane, or one day be a doctor, you will one day be a police officer or you will one day be an engineer. It all comes down to you.
“A lot of people out there in our world, they may say, ‘Oh, I haven’t had breakfast so I won’t go to school’. ‘Or I’ll go do homebrew and sit with the group under the tree, or I’ll go smoke’. Your parents did not tell you to do that. No one forced you to do it. Those were individual choices you made. And those individual choices will put you on the pathway to failure or success.
“Do not let your circumstances, like being homeless or living in a settlement, stand before you as a hurdle. Don’t let those circumstances drag you down.”
Rosso said he grew up in a settlement, walked barefooted to school, was hungry most times and made the decision to never suffer such hardships again.
“I promised myself I would never be poor again. I made that choice and I succeeded. I never went to school in Australia. I attended St Mary’s Primary School, Lae Secondary, Passam and further to university.
“I grew up in a settlement, just like you. So if you say you can’t do it, that’s bull****. You can do it and I challenge you to do it.”