Becoming a guidance counsellor in a Kingston primary school was a real culture shock. Coming from St. Ann, I was not used to the trauma some of my students were experiencing on a regular basis. When one of our Holy Family students, Angel, was murdered in 2017, that was the first in my tenure, so I had nothing to compare it to. As a… Read more →←
I am what they called ‘unattached youth’, and I can count on my fingers, toes and teeth the persons who have told me that I will never amount to anything. But it is because of my experiences that I have reached where I have. I joined Fight for Peace two years ago when I was 17 years-old. First, I was a part of the boxing and the book… Read more →←
I’ve been involved in badness since I was 11 years old, when I had my little ‘one pop’ (single shot gun). When the Peace Management Initiative (PMI) first approached me I never took it seriously, because I was making too much money on the streets leading a gang here in Denham Town. But just three of us are left from a crew of… Read more →←
Children often grow up believing they are supposed to get beaten and that bullying and other forms of violence are part of their education. But when you talk to a primary school child, who as a consequence of this violence, starts considering suicide, then you must know the situation nuh normal. So, we need to break it down by having a… Read more →←
I share some common background with our clients – girls and young women – in experiencing childhood sexual abuse. From the age of six years-old it was a cousin ten years older who abused me. Yet I was always thinking that I was playing dolly house. At Eve for Life, about 75-80 per cent of our mentees have experienced child sexual… Read more →←
A few years ago it was Eve for Life telling me that my life was not over. Today it is me having that same conversation with others, telling them, ‘Where you are right now, that was once me, but look at me now!’ Eve for Life has become a family to me where they have grown me from a mentee to a mentor mom and now I am a life coach… Read more →←
People at school are always surprised when I tell them I do taekwondo with Fight for Peace. But now I have a green belt and I help coach! What I really like about it is learning self-defense. You can protect yourself on the road like a lot of times I have to use it at my school, Camperdown High School. Students that are bigger than me… Read more →←
I feel good in myself when I can sit down and listen to someone who has a similar experience to me being in state care. Because what I have been through I can literally say to them – “I am you!” Yet, when I was going through those experiences I could not even imagine that I would be alive today, because I did have a lot of suicidal… Read more →←
I am a survivor of sexual violence. It happened to me when I was seven years old and living in Linstead, St. Catherine. My parents knew what happened and were supportive, but it wasn’t until I was in my thirties and living in Canada for school, that I felt comfortable talking about it publicly. It was at a ‘Take Back the Night’… Read more →←
I would like to tell you a story about a little boy called DJ, which illustrates the challenges that parents of children with disabilities and the children themselves have. At the age of two years, DJ’s mother became concerned about his speech. They visited their local health centre where his mother was told “boys are slower than… Read more →←
