Young men sitting on Bermuda's walls are keen to transform their lives, but they don't do anything about it as they don't feel part of the community.About 150 people were last night told how young black men were “not at all satisfied” at being out-of-school and unemployed.The crowd at City Hall was told that these wall-sitters looked back on their past with regret and expressed hope of making something out of their lives.Monique Keyser, a Columbia University scientist, said most wall-sitters were from troubled backgrounds and had been exposed to community violence.She said the majority of the men had also been expelled from school and felt no one cared about them.But Dr Keyser said many of them were still indicating the desire to go to Bermuda College. This led Dr Keyser to question whether the college was doing enough to attract black males.Dr Keyser's was giving a public presentation on her ‘Out of School and On the Wall' study which shows many young black men are exposed to violence and drugs or alcohol abuse in their lives, leading to behavioural problems in school.This is the follow-up report to the Mincy Report Dr Keyser co-authored two years ago, which found more than half of young black males drop out of school early.Dr Keyser said we needed to work together to help get these young men back into the community “with a sense of urgency.”She said she asked the wall-sitters where they saw themselves in five years. Some of them questioned whether they'd still be around because of the gun violence, but the majority of them said they “wanted something better.”Dr Keyser said: “These people don't want to be on the wall, they aren't satisfied with their current situations, absolutely not.“They still have goals and they want change. With some support, they can still be reconnected.”Dr Keyser carried out lengthy interviews with 22 young people, aged 18 to 29, who ‘sat on the wall' many of them lived on the streets or stayed with friends.She said 72 percent had been involved in using or selling drugs and 64 percent had been involved in crime, which had resulted in probation or prison.The majority of those she interviewed were from single parent homes that grew up with little or no contact with their fathers. Seventy-four percent of those interviewed identified a “family stressor” such as death, divorce or incarceration.She revealed most had been expelled from school, usually for fighting or drugs, 73 percent did not complete their GED and only 18 percent attended college, although none of them had got college degrees.Dr Keyser said: “Schools are doing nothing for them, they are putting them in a dead-end place.“There are school drop outs at age 16 and there's nowhere for them to go, there's no alternative system to pick them up.”Dr Keyser said she “delved into” who these people are and how they got into the situations they were in.She said she had 2,000 pages of transcripts and shared the stories of some of the people who had been interviewed.She told the story of ‘Daquan' aged 23 who is a Hustle Truck worker who has his GED and inspires to go to Bermuda College. He's from a single parent home and said “everything was all right until I turned 14” when he got into trouble for fighting and smoking marijuana. His mom then kicked him out of home, he was expelled from school and he got involved in the Town versus Country rivalry.Dr Keyser explained how she also interviewed a total of 35 High School students aged 14 and 15 to assess why so many young people leave school without any qualifications. Dr Keyser said 40 percent of this sample had already been exposed to ‘street life.'She said the boys believed girls had it easier as the teachers were biased towards them because of “the stigma of them being thugs or gang members.”However, Dr Keyser's findings showed girls got into more trouble and committed more offences than boys at that age. Seventy-eight percent of 18 boys received discipline referrals, compared to 88 percent of 17 girls.It was found that boys were less likely to seek emotional support in school than girls. One boy, who had been kicked out of home, said teachers just cared about how you looked and functioned rather than your feelings. In contrast a girl said she felt comfortable talking to her teacher if she'd had an argument with her mom.Dr Keyser said having “supportive adults at home and school” made all the difference in young people's lives. She said early adolescence was “a critical period.”She explained how boys were growing up involved in gangs and girls were fearing gangs, saying: “We need to address these concerns and fears or they are not going to be able to succeed in schools.”Dr Keyser called for “a multi-sector collaboration” with better guidance counselling in schools and career academies to offer mentoring and job exposure.The audience was made up of many people from within the education system, as well as police officers, charity workers, university students and politicians.Dr Keyser took the time to answer people's questions and address concerns at the end of her slide show presentation.Community leaders respond