Marcus Steele (right), finance director of Carreras Group Limited, talks with (from left) Qwayne Moore of St Andrew Primary School, while Gerald Shannon of Clan Carthy Primary and Tianna Golding of Whitfield Town Primary listen. The students were at the American Chamber of Commerce of Jamaica's 'Give a Child a Dream 2008' luncheon and mini-career expo at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel, New Kingston, yesterday. - Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer

Thirty-four-year-old Marcus Steele had a rough childhood, but he did not allow his situation to prevent him from succeeding and today, he is the finance director for Carreras Group Limited.

Steele was born in Payne Land, an inner-city community off Spanish Town Road in Kingston, and was the 23rd of 25 children for his father, who had them with nine women.

Steele and his family fled Payne Land during the bloody 1980 general election.

Captured land

They captured a parcel of land and built a wooden structure in Grange Lane, a community in Portmore, St Catherine. He started attending Bernard Lodge All-Age School.

Steele, who was speaking during the American Chamber of Commerce of Jamaica's 'Give a Child a Dream' luncheon at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston yesterday, said he would often see his mother cry because she could not find the money to send him to school, much less to buy food.

"When you don't born in riches, you can get it through education, so I told myself that the Lord blessed me with a brain and I am going to use it," Steele told the gathering.

Steele's mother left the household in search of a better life. He said his father told him that he could no longer go to school and he had to stay home and tend the animals.

Steele would have none of this and decided he would run away from home and try to find his mother.

And so he did, living on the streets for a few days and even begging money to get by each day. He eventually found his mother and she enrolled him in the Gregory Park All-Age School.

Placed in 'dunce' class

Steele said he was placed in a "dunce" class, but his teacher saw that he had potential and fought internal obstacles so that he could sit the Common Entrance Examination.

He won a place at St Jago High School and later attended the University of the West Indies where he continued to excel.

"It's where you are heading, it's not where you are coming from," he said, noting that his situation has made him a humble person.