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Brown donates $2,000 from book to Mirrors

Backing youth: Ewart Brown presents Mirrors programme co-ordinator Kimberley Jackson with his $2,000 donation (Photograph by Akil Simmons).

Former premier Ewart Brown has donated $2,000 from proceeds from his memoirs to a youth development charity.

The charity, Mirrors, was launched early in the administration of Dr Brown, who led the country from 2006 to 2010.

Dr Brown has said the Mirrors programme for at-risk young people was his “favourite” achievement from his time in office.

The first 1,000 copies of the hardcover autobiography, Whom Shall I Fear?, arrived on the island this month and were sold for $50 a copy at book-signing events.

Kimberley Jackson, the programme co-ordinator at Mirrors, said the donation would help with its work.

Ms Jackson said: “As much as we awaken young people’s academic, social and emotional learning, it brings forth other needs.

“We will use these funds to help them with everything from support to take the GED to training costs and clothes for work.”

Dr Brown said another shipment of the book was en route to the island.

He added that the book had generated “positive feedback”, even the harder-hitting views on some of his political colleagues.

Dr Brown said people who remembered him as premier had told him that “they’re glad to get clarification at last on my side of the story”. He added: “I expect when the next shipment comes, it will be out in the bookstores.”

Dr Brown’s recollections of childhood include some no-holds-barred accounts of getting in trouble. He said that he might have benefited from a programme such as Mirrors as a youngster.

Dr Brown added: “That’s probably why I am so attached to it, I have no doubt.”

UPDATE: this article has been amended to make clear that the donation to Mirrors was for $2,000