Patricia Pringle-Baker points to a chart documenting work achieved in water and sanitation in Botany Bay, Pamphret and White Horses in St Thomas. As unusual as it might seem, some people do enjoy a life spent making sure that everyone within their reach is doing as well as it is within their power to ensure.
Patricia Pringle-Baker, however, is no ordinary 'do-gooder'. Apparently a very simple 'country' woman, she has learnt how to leverage a natural talent for networking and a superior skill in organisation into tangible benefits for her entire community in Pamphret, Botany Bay and White Horses in St Thomas.
tempted to write PM
A great believer in writing letters (she was tempted recently, she said, to write Prime Minister Bruce Golding about free tertiary education for mature Jamaicans), Pringle-Baker is fond of writing agencies for help on projects which will benefit the whole community.
Teaching herself to do surveys and, later, getting involved in programmes offered by the Ministry of Water and Housing, she has also played a critical role in disaster management in her community.
According to Linnette Vassell, community development and gender specialist in the rural water programme of the Ministry of Water and Housing, "Pringle-Baker is always seeking ways to bring development to the community.
"She is the office administrator, organiser of the chicken farmers group, a member of the water management committee, and the main point person for the disaster preparedness. In Hurricane Dean, she and her family members spearheaded the establishment of a shelter in Botany Bay.
"Mrs Pringle-Baker is creative and she shows a lot of initiative. For example, she was one of our first WASH (water sanitation and hygiene) promoters who worked on a sanitation programme in the community, and one of her most recent initiatives is that she wrote a project proposal almost single- handedly to get support from the Private Sector Development Programme."
The funds that are coming to the benevolent society in Botany Bay will be pooled with contributions from the Rural Agricultural Development Agency, the Women's Resource and Outreach Centre (WROC ) and Christian-Aid, with other agencies, to complete a community development plan for projects, including the support of the community centre.
Pringle-Baker wrote her project proposal almost single-handedly, and was able to get that support.
survey trips
So enthusiastic is the woman about what she does that she takes her two sons and two daughters - three of them teenagers - on her information-gathering/survey trips whenever she can.
At the community centre where she works as office administrator, she can be found every day writing recommendations, giving advice on how to apply for water, and writing proposals.
"We have run pipelines from Goodyear to Pamphret and constructed a tank," she boasted in her recent Outlook interview.
Patricia Pringle-Baker is no soft-living civil servant, but a woman as hard-pressed to survive as her neighbours. She is simply amazing.
In her community, she was also a point woman in the rehabilitation work carried out for chicken farmers in the area by the Women's Resource and Outreach Centre and Christian-Aid, and the re-roofing project carried out by those agencies after Hurricane Dean in 2007.
Pringle-Baker's husband is the long-suffering Botany Bay-based contractor, Joel Baker, who told Outlook that is wife "is a mother of the community. She is like a pastor for the community. She is the type of person who works with people whether they are big or little."
Patricia, he states, is also a great 'joiner' of associations and maybe, he says, belongs to as many as 10 at this time.
In 1999, Patricia heard about the White Horses Benevolent Association and visited one of its meetings. She became a member and was a leader in the creation of the Botany Bay association thereafter.
eyes for opportunities
Patricia, now age 46, was born in less than fortunate circumstances, but has always had an eye open for opportunities to do better in life. Growing up in Manchester with her grandmother, she recalls that at age 15 she was sent to the market when, while walking with her donkey, she saw a group of young people dressed up and going out.
When questioned, they said they were on their way to the Norman Manley Training Centre to do an entry test. "I tied my donkey," Pringle-Baker said, "and followed them." She was called in three weeks later, and enrolled to do dance and drama.
Her training then, did not change her life, for at age 23, she was working in Spring Plains, reaping tomatoes and pepper. Searching for a better life, Patricia Pringle came to St Thomas in 1985 to live with an uncle.
She immediately embarked on a life of good works.
She started, she said, with a blind woman in her community, who needed an operation. Writing to then Minister Horace Dalley, she secured assistance which led to an operation and the return of sight in one eye. After various storms, she also began to seek help for individuals who were worst affected.
Joel Baker states today, "Most of what Patricia does is for nothing. She does not get any pay. But it is good that she can help. Personally, I am proud of her, although some of the time she does not have time for me."
In November 2007, Pringle-Baker went to Colombia in South America to make a presentation on behalf of all the benevolent societies, about the work being done in water and sanitation.
She has availed herself of training by the Ministry of Water and Housing, the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM), WROC and the Red Cross, in seeking to hone her community development skills, but yearns of go to the university - a venture which she cannot now afford.
The community issues that she would love to tackle include poverty and unemployment in the Pamphret, Botany Bay and Whitehorses.
She notes that, in her neck of the woods, unemployment is high, with many school leavers resorting to burning coal in the hills, or selling fruits such as sweetsop which they find on local trees.
"I try to utilise my contacts to help the poor and needy, and to develop the community," she says, but she is also frustrated that the process is such a slow one. She believes that if she were to go to university, she could do more.
While she waits for her dream to come true, Pringle-Baker does what she does best, turning up for work in the community centre day after day - a place where her pay includes much more than her monthly stipend.
She works for the joy of it and is happy that her calling is such a fulfilling one.
Pringle-Baker has written several successful proposals for community development. - Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer
Patricia Pringle-Baker, community dynamo.
