Manchester High to benefit from Tufton’s book

After a seven-year gestation, Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton's first book, ' State of Mind: Politics, Uncertainty and the Search for the Jamaican Dream', is now a reality, and all proceeds will go to the soon-to-be launched endowment fund of his alma mater, Manchester High School (MHS).

The book was launched at the Institute of Jamaica in Kingston on Sunday and is appropriately dedicated to his late mother, Ruby, and "also to my alma mater, MHS. The two most powerful influences on my life and the person I have become." These words are inscribed in the book's opening pages.

Asked by CENTRAL STAR why an endowment fund for the school, Dr Tufton detailed how MHS was key to his mindset and focus which have assisted him throughout life.

"I would like to give back to assist other students who may not have the means and require the guidance to achieve the same. The endowment fund will be guided by a board so that expenditure will be targeted to doing that," he said.

Dr Tufton said that he sees the book as a public service.

"And so the proceeds should rightfully support a public good. Supporting needy students at MHS to my mind is a good way to give back to community and country," he said.

Of his reasons for writing the book, Tufton said that after losing the 2012 election, he decided to take time to reflect on his early years of high school and the awakening of his political journey and to conduct research.

He outlined those reasons as a need to achieve four key things.

"First, to assess my political journey, from awakening to the agony of defeat, to determine where I may have gone wrong; and second, to bring context and clarity to the impact I may or may not have had on those I was elected to serve," he said.

Third, Dr Tufton also said he attempted to record his political journey "as succinctly and simply as possible", so that it would provide some guidance to those coming after him.

"Finally, I wanted to find answers about how Jamaica can foster a more stable and vibrant democracy, recognising our culture and political system, to engage in a process of reflection that would see and understand who we are as a people and look at the possibilities of what we can become," he said.