Needed: A place to call home
This is the first in a three-part series looking at the phenomenon of men and boys on Jamaica’s streets.
AT 20 years old, ‘Blacks’ has seen more hardship than he cares to rehash.
At one time a thief, he now makes a living from cleaning windscreens in Liguanea and Mountain View. Blacks has also been shot, and while he has found relatives, continues to live on the streets. His is a painful reality.
Still, he sits with the Sunday Observer on a pavement along Old Hope Road on March 4 to share his experiences of life on Jamaica’s streets.
“A just family still why mi find myself on the streets; mi neva really know mi family,” says the youth who refuses to give his correct name.
Blacks, as he is called, reveals that before he hit the streets eight years ago, he spent time in a boys’ home outside of Kingston (which he also refuses to name).
“Mi neva like it, and mi run weh from mi a 12 (years old),” he says.
Asked why he fled, Blacks explained that not only had personnel at the home been abusive (physically and emotionally), but also that he simply could not abide witnessing other boys being visited by relatives while he had none.
“You get beaten wid all hose, and dem thing de,” he says.
Blacks adds that his experiences at the facility had been so bad that they, previously, clouded his perspective on friendship and family.
“Mi neva really know seh mi coulda have friends,” reveals the youth. “Dem (personnel at the home) used to seh ‘guh weh, nobody nuh like yuh’. So dem thing de mek mi feel pissed off. But now mi meet other boys who live like me, and mi have a few friends,” he says.
“Me well set. Dem (other boys) nuh too go ’round Blacks; dem know seh mi a good bwoy (although) more time mi just get mad and nuh really response fi cars in a di road or nothing,” adds the youth who, at the age of 14 in 2002, was numbered among the island’s 2,818, at a minimum, street and working children.
This is according to the National Survey of Street
& Working Children, prepared by Ruel Cooke,
of WORKERMANAGEMENT Services Centre, for the Child Support Unit of the Ministry of Health.
The report added that the number of street and working children could have been as high as 6,448 – based on informed estimates – in that year.
Meanwhile, the childcare systems’ failure to adequately care for Blacks and his lack of a family at the time are but two of the factors responsible for the presence of Jamaica’s children, and later young adults, on the streets living and/or working.
Other factors, according to the 2002 survey include:
. physical, sexual or emotional abuse, including by parents or guardians – usually leading to the child running away from home and being forced into labour;
. peer pressure and the consequences of actions of parents such as neglect, migration or directly sending their children out on the streets; and
. destitution, that is, being forced unto the streets to supplement the inadequate income of the household, often following the laying off of the principal caregiver.
Blacks, in the interim, is pessimistic that Government and/or private sector interests are willing to come to the rescue of street boys and men. If they were, he reasons, they would have done so already.
“Mi nuh si what Government duh. Right now we de pon di road and we nuh follow Government rules. We just keep wiself steady,” he notes.
As for plans to remove boys from the streets, Blacks hisses his teeth. Yet, he is among the first to welcome such a move.
“Tek dem off the road? That woulda good, but we know seh that nah happen,” he said.
As Blacks speaks, he observes the line of traffic along Old Hope Road, only metres away; it is the source of his survival.
But for the moment, he is content to chat with the Sunday Observer, noting that things are a little slow “in the week”.
Since his days at the boys’ home, Blacks has met two women who he says have identified themselves as his mother and grandmother. However, he does little to nurture those ties, particularly as it regards his mother.
“When mi turn 16, mi si some people who seh dem a mi family, but mi nuh really know,” he says somberly. “Mi nuh like all di one who seh she a mi mother. As a matter of fact, mi hate har because of all that happen.”
According to Blacks, had his mother done what she was supposed to do as a parent, he would not be living on the streets.
“She come in like she out of her mind. She nuh really understand,” he says, his tone angry. “More time mi just feel pissed off. Mi know seh if she waan duh certain things (differently), mi wouldn’t de yah suh.”
Blacks’ sentiments mirror those of other youths in the 2007 study entitled ‘Force Ripe’: How youth of three selected working-class communities assess their identity, support and authority systems, including their relationship with the police. Youth in that study felt that they were being used by various groups in society, namely parents, the church, and the police.
Funded by the World Bank and managed by the now-concluded Jamaica Social Policy Evaluation Project (JASPEV), the investigations were undertaken by Dr Herbert Gayle as the principal investigator and his colleague from the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, Horace Levy.
“They feel isolated and that people are using them and while it may not be true, the fact is that they feel this way means that it is serious enough for the adults in the society to deal with,” said Criminologist Professor Bernard Headley, in commenting on the study at the time. “It is a matter of trust. It means that something is wrong between us, and them. There has to be mutual trust.”
The work looked at youths between 15 and 29 years old from two inner-city areas and one rural community, and employed the use of peer ethnography. The technique saw young people interviewing each other and then returning to researchers Gayle and Levy, who, in turn, interviewed them.
Meanwhile, as for his grandmother, Blacks says they get along ok. It was she who was there to support him when he was shot a few years ago, he said.
“Mi get on wid her. One time a little thing gwaan and mi get shot inna mi foot. Mi end up inna hospital and when mi call, she reach right away,” said Blacks, adding that whenever he can he gives her money.
“More time mi mek a t’ing and give her,” he says.
He refuses to divulge where he sleeps at night.
“A pon de road mi deh. Mi nuh tell people weh mi sleep,” he tells the Sunday Observer.
To tell, Blacks says, would be to put himself at a security risk. He concedes only that he has “a place” where he keeps a little bag of a few clothing items and hygiene supplies, and a system to get himself clean.
“Mi nuh want nothin’ more than two or three suit and two little t’ing,” he said, noting that the less you had while on the streets, the more mobile you were.
At the same time, he recalls the four years he spent as a thief.
“When mi did on the streets before mi start wipe car glass, mi neva have nothin’ suh mi used to hold up people wid a knife and tek them things. And if them nuh give mi, a hurt them a get hurt,” he says, adding that he had been good at it. “When mi a thief mi neva get caught cause mi nuh use second (an assistant). The first time mi use assistant, mi get shot.”
He would say no more about the shooting incident, but made it clear it was not the reason he stopped stealing.
“Mi could guh back guh thief; mi good pon it mi a tell yuh, Miss. But a since mi come pon the light mi stop,” he explains.
According to Blacks, if you are “wise” as a windscreen wiper, you can save a portion of what you earn to buy needed items.
“Mostly on Saturday mi mek a t’ing; maybe up to a gran’ ($1,000). But yuh haffi start early.”
The financial considerations aside, Blacks said looking back, he is very aware that he could have been killed.
“Mi look pon the two side and si seh nuff time when mi guh t’ief mi coulda give up mi life,” he said, appearing pensive.
Blacks also acknowledges that there are a few people, who he has met in the four years since he has been wiping windscreens, who would be disappointed were he to go back to that life.
Plus, he says: “Mi a boy weh a hustle fi mi own; mi have ambition”.
Blacks has plans to attend HEART Trust/NTA where he hopes to study industrial electronics.
“Mi a look ahead to something,” he says, adding that he is to sit an entry test on April 1, having already filled out application papers.
“A really engineering mi did want to do still, but them seh what them have is industrial electronics,” he says.
Blacks’ only other desire is to have a family of his own making.
“Mi want a real family for myself weh me start and know seh a my family,” he says. “I neva really de in a family life so I want to know how it feels.”
Attending HEART and his dream for a family are what help to keep him on the straight and narrow; he doesn’t smoke and he doesn’t carry a weapon.
“Yuh know how much hassle yuh get from the police when yuh have dem ting de,” concludes the youths, as he goes back to wiping windscreens.
