Mr. Montenegro, a 46-year-old Mexican, said he was drawn into gang culture during a difficult childhood with an absent father and a mother abusing drugs.

He joined The Avenues in East LA, but at 15 ended up in a drug rehabiliation programme after being arrested for Grand Theft Auto.

Mr. Montenegro said: "When I was born my mum was 18 and three years later my dad went to prison for holding up liquor stores in the neighbourhood.

"I grew up without a father. He was a gang member and was in prison. Years later he moved away to Northern California, to get away from the drugs and violence and negativity he had in LA.

"My mother was an angry woman, and when I was five years old she started to hit us. It was like living and walking on rice paper, on pins and needles, trying to do the right thing. She was using drugs, heroin, but now thankfully has been delivered from this.

"But when I was 11, a guy came out from behind a bush in my neighbourhood and said, 'Hey Pepe, I've got something for you'. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out two marijuana cigarettes, two joints.

"He said, 'Why don't you try them with me'. I said 'no' at first but he convinced me to smoke some weed with him and I got high. From then on I started selling marijuana to my peers, my friends.

"Twelve years old, I started dressing in the style of a gang member. Then at 13 I got jumped into the gang."

Mr. Montenegro said: "I felt my family wasn't working for me. My step-father was on drugs but the guys from my neighbourhood started giving me attention and said, 'Hey man, start hanging out with us'.

"I started feeling I was valuable and important. It felt great to throw blows at people, because my mind was distorted then.

"One time I was hit over the head with a pipe, another time in an alley I got threatened with a machete to my throat. He said, 'Where are you from?' and I told him The Avenues. I thought the gang was my life. I was committed, dedicated."

Mr. Montenegro said at the age of 15, he was arrested for Grand Theft Auto with two other gang members. The car also contained drugs and weapons. At the time, he said he was known as 'Poison'. Now however, he jokes that "people say I am like George Lopez".

After his arrest, he had to attend a drug rehabilitation programme and there he met five men who changed his life.

One had a missing eye, another had missing fingers, one man had five bullet scars and another had his teeth knocked out. But the one which affected him most was the former gangbanger who had been partially-paralysed by a bullet to his back.

"This guy couldn't even walk, I would pick him up and put him in the bath, and people used to fear him before he got shot," said Mr. Montenegro.

"These men looked at me and said, 'You want to be like us?'."

He said: "At fifteen-and-a-half, somebody finally told me I was special, unique and valuable. I had dropped out of high school but I dropped back in to school, and when I found God I went on to do my BA and MA.

"And now here I am in Bermuda, with special young people, unique young people, valuable young people."

He told the students at T. N. Tatem: "We don't ever want you to think the gang lifestyle is for you. It's not. If it was we would still be involved in it.

"Some of you may have family members involved in a crew or a gang. You may feel they are cool because they look like that guy in the MTV video.

"You may think that's 'what's up', but let me tell you, there are many people in Los Angeles, California and the US who are now fighting against the gang lifestyle.

"We have to tell you, drug gangs and violence will get you nothing. Please don't copy the gang lifestyle, please know you are special, unique and valuable, that you have something better to offer.

"Please make the right decision because you are the future."