Ten years ago, the then Minister of Community Development and Family Services, Dr Linda Baboolal, officially opened the Hope Centre at Pointe-a-Pierre Road in San Fernando. A place where disadvantaged children could find a temporary home in an environment that promotes healing and encourages their general well- being and happiness. Since then, approximately 178 children have passed through the wide and welcoming doors of the beautifully refurbished Carvalho building.
The transformation of the dilapidated and vandalised building began in 1990 when it was recognised that the voluntary organisation established in 1986 at Caritas Centre as a call-in counselling station for substance abusers and families in crisis, needed to provide a home for disadvantaged children. By April 30,1992, with tremendous kindness from a cross section of people, Hope Centre was completed and opened its doors to the first child. To celebrate its recent anniversary, every past Board Member was invited to tea.
The Centre which is run by a Board under chairperson, Polly Indar, provides a temporary home for children between the ages of three to eleven years. However, if an older child comes with his or her siblings the Centre will not split them up. The children come from several sources, such as, the Community Police and social workers; and temporary legal custody is sought through the courts.
While the youngsters are resident in the extremely well-kept Centre, Rhonda Harriott, lovingly looks after their needs, and also efficiently manages the Centre.
Although a qualified teacher is employed, at the moment there are just two students, as the other children have been integrated into the public schools in the area. "We try to send them to the ones they came from" explained Harriott "we send them to school in the second hand car given by a kind corporate citizen to the Centre about six years ago. We pay for a driver."
Government's subvention is a small one which barely covers the salaries of those who work at the Centre but through the overwhelming generosity of simple people Hope Centre keeps going. The land around has been beautifully landscaped and maintained, and a playing field with bleachers provides recreational space for the children. "We look after all their needs, medical, social and psychological" says Harriott "and because it is a small home the kids are better able to integrate when they return to the outside world."
Those in charge of Hope Centre try to provide a normal, loving home environment - the children are sent to Sunday School, the managers attend Parent Teachers' Meetings, and birthdays are celebrated with cake and ice cream. But the basics are not forgotten, dormitories are left neat and tidy by the youngsters, appetising smells came from the pot which bubbled on the stove in the chef's clean and airy kitchen and we learnt that attention is paid to nutrition, so that menus include only fresh fruits and juices and milk, no junk food.
Mrs Indar worries "what is the future going to be for our children because some who go back to relatives eventually run away, not always though. We try to follow through to see how those who leave the Home are going, there are times when this is not possible. But most of the children go to new guardians, grandparents, or an aunt and not back to the abusive situation which they may have been in."
The Centre also helps the older children through an outreach programme, either with first year school books or lunches. One past student has even been put through a hairdressing course. "We keep track of our children" says Mrs Indar "so that if a child is sent back to a parent and is in an unhappy situation, Hope Centre acts immediately."
And although the Centre is really supposed to be a short term solution of keeping a child one year to 18 months, some stay longer. "What can we do when there are no parents coming forward for these children?" asks Indar. While Harriott lamented "there are some children nobody ever comes to visit them. So we send some to the Orphanage or the Islamic Home in Gasparillo after age 11 to 12, as we do not keep them."
While the 16 youngsters who currently live at Hope Centre enjoy a home away from home as each child has personal things in a personal area of the dormitory which holds five to six children, there can be heart-wrenching moments when the youngsters who have grown accustomed to a loving environment must leave. "I saw one child hold on to the car and cry her eyes out when she had to leave. They are lovely children" says Harriott.
What plans are on the drawing board for Hope Centre? There is an expansion arm for the millennium, that includes a group of young, offshore workers, who are just ready and waiting to start the actual expansion of the buildings, once the plan is approved and materials are available. Hope Centre will then be able to accommodate more of the many disadvantaged chilren who go unnoticed and unattended in our communities.