Shawna-Kaye Lester, Youth Writer
NORMAN GRINDLEY, Staff Photographer
SOME teenagers would probably find a rope for a solution, so desperate is the situation of 15-year-old Ricardo Hamilton.
His father ran away from home when he was a baby and his mother died last year. Ricardo is on his own, except for a few friends who were close to his mother. They help him sometimes with accommodation, he says.
No home, and no parental guidance, the streets have now become his parents and his home. For months now the shy chap has not tasted a hot meal or slept in a warm bed. Pieces of cardboard boxes are Ricardo's bed at nights and he sleeps on the cold ground in his friends' yard.
"A no every time dem caan mek mi sleep in a dem house. Sometime dem go out an no come back till late," he said.
Making at most $300 per day wiping windscreens, Ricardo is a prey for the older, bigger and stronger street boys.
"Some a dem will hold mi hand and some will tek out the money out of mi pocket," he said.
CHILDREN FIRST
One Non Governmental Organisation that has been helping these children is Children First. The programme originally began in 1989 with the support of Save the Children Fund (United Kingdom), but has been independent since 1993.
Now Children First is fulfilling its vision of working with and for children while promoting the rights of the child through remedial education, counselling, academic assistance, life/survival skills training, youth advocacy training, child rights education and basic skills training.
The programme targets 10- to 18-year-olds in St. Catherine and is helping more than 700 children. It also caters to the preventative work development and health care of children three to nine years old.
It is amazing how the choral reply -- "because our parents sent us" -- has grown in volume and conviction from 7th to 10th grade students whenever authority figures pose the question: "Why are you here?"
The extent of the conviction is reflected by their general lack of enthusiasm and the compilation of achievements on their files at the end of five years of high school -- a mere: she came, she left.
Rather than being stuck in a sweltering classroom absorbing algebra, many argue that they could be at home sleeping, eating or having fun with friends on the streets.
There are some teens who don't think this is so great.
SOME HAVE NO HOMES TO RETURN TO
They know because they've been hanging out on the streets for years and they have no home to return to.
They wipe windscreens so they can wear clothes, eat the next meal, feed the family and survive. Their world, their reality.
Readers, meet the street boys of Marcus Garvey Drive, Kingston.
It's a hot afternoon. While some head off to Math and English classes conducted by citizens of the Newport West community at the Newport West Police Station, others remain to get what they can wiping windscreens.
Eighteen-year-old Dean is busy as we speak. He's using a piece of broken glass to cut some holes and blisters off his friend's feet. Dean, like most of the other boys live in Majesty Gardens. He lives with his friend and his 'friend's ooman' as he says that his own girlfriend has 'given him bun'.
Martin, 17, standing nearby came out of a traditional nuclear family -- mother, father and siblings -- while another young man states that he lives with his mother and five siblings.
Just imagine each time your mother needs $200 for food and so seeks the financial assistance of yet another man. While she ends up with the $200, she also ends up with another hungry mouth to feed. That's the reality of many of their lives.
Her dreams are transferred to her children who also have ideas for a better life -- a life where they have the education so they can get a big job and live in a 'good community'. For now though, these goals give way to complacency as the rain starts to pour and Dean hops onto a van and disappears.
I realise that for them, surviving from day-to-day is their biggest achievement yet.
