She was just into her teenage years but Amanda (not her real name) had the freedom to do as she pleased just like any adult. This was possible because her mother worked in the interior and she was left in the care of her grandmother.
It meant that that she seldom attended school but instead went to parties and lived a carefree life enjoying what she thought at the time were the sweet things of the world. Eventually her actions caught the attention of the state authorities and her mother attempted to tighten the reins, but by then Amanda was fixed in her ways, a situation which forced her mother to turn her over to state care.
Amanda was furious because she felt that the woman who should love her the most was abandoning her to state care, which she hated with a vengeance.
But six months at the Mahaica children’s home and after being told that she had topped her class after just a few months at the Sophia training school, Amanda has reconciled to the idea of being in state care. It is not, as the soft spoken 15-year-old told the Sunday Stabroek in a recent interview, that she might not jump at the idea of returning home, but she is coming to the conclusion that state care is perhaps a better option.
Amanda is believed to have been a victim of trafficking in persons, but it is a concept that she rejects, because even though late last year she was brought out of the interior by members of the Guyana Women Miners Organisation (GWMO), as far as she was concerned, she was not trafficked. At the time she was with her mother in an interior location.
“I would help like sell in the shop and so on just help around…” she told this newspaper, and when asked directly if she was engaged in any sexual activity while at the location the child quickly said no.
At the time of her removal Amanda was 14 and President of the GWMO Simona Broomes had indicated that the woman had said the child was not there to work as a prostitute. However, it was pointed out to her that the area was no place for a child. The mother had told the women miners that she owned a dredge and a shop, but business was bad and she had more children in the city who were hungry and she could not afford to support them. She had begged them to visit her address “and provide even if it is a gallon of rice” for her children.
Following her removal Amanda was returned to the care of her mother and this angered Broomes, who felt that the child should have remained in state care as her mother was obviously not in a position to take care of her.
However, Director of the Child Care & Protection Agency (CC&PA) Ann Greene said it is never a first option to separate children from their parents, and the agency had worked with the mother and had given her a second chance.
Back to the interior
After being returned to the care of the mother Amanda was enrolled in school and was left with her grandmother, as her mother continued to work in the interior. But Amanda would have none of it and after becoming friends with two girls who were older she decided one day that she would return to the interior.
“One a dem come back from the bush and she had she own money and so and I deh want go. I deh want be me own big woman and get me own money,” Amanda recalled.
One day she told her mother she wanted to go back into the interior but she forbade the teenager from doing this. Amanda related that she told her mother that she could not stop her. She waited until her mother had left for the interior and notwithstanding the protestations of her grandmother she packed her bag and left with her friends.
Her mother was immediately contacted and she informed the authorities, and even though Amanda used a false name by the time she reached a Region 9 location the three were accosted by the police and returned to Georgetown. While the other two girls were returned to their families Amanda’s mother told state care authorities that she couldn’t handle her.
Initially she felt that her mother did not like her, but now Amanda believes that it was best for her to remain in state care. She was allowed to return home for a weekend and observed that one of her two friends was pregnant and the other was continuing her partying ways.
“When I look at dem I know it coulda been me pregnant; I don’t want to go parties any more I want to go to school, I want to become a nurse…” she said quietly.
She is not sure how long she would remain in state care but indicated she would like to eventually write CSEC, something that was a very remote possibility six months ago.
“When I start living in the home and look at certain things and learn more I know is wrong what I use to do.”
She wants to be a nurse and make her mother proud, because even though her mother did not always have time she knows now that with eight children (some are adults and working) it is difficult for her.
Sometimes she longs to return home but knows that if she does she may not continue on the path that would afford her an education and eventually lead to her becoming a nurse.
‘Damned if we do, damned if we don’t’
Greene is proud of the progress Amanda has made so far, pointing out that the child has the potential to go far and will remain in state care even though it was initially not what the agency had envisioned.
She said many times it is “damned if we do and damned if we don’t” as whatever decisions they take when dealing with children there are always persons who will be unhappy.
She said there is a notion many have that “Ann Greene does tek away you children,” but she maintained that removing a child is the last resort.
“We take a child into care as a last resort; parents, families, they have responsibility for the care of their children…state comes in as a backup…” Greene said.
Explaining the process she told the Sunday Stabroek that the agency first looks for kin to take care of a child who may be in a vulnerable position as things happen in families sometimes. Children, she said, are vulnerable in their homes, instead of it being the safest place.
“Let’s face it, not only in Guyana [but] the world over, children are at risk in the homes; that is the irony of the thing – the place where they should be safe…and we have to find safe places,” Greene said adding that the agency does have safe places for children.
Hundreds of children are in state care and Greene said there are three government-run homes while the agency also monitors a privately run home. However, she said institutional care is not the best for a child, and apart from it being done as a last resort it should also be for the shortest period of time. Greene said there is a procedure for removing a child and first and foremost the agency would work with the family in cases where there might be a mother who is struggling and needs some assistance to ensure she can take better care of the children. But if that does not work the agency then attempts to find substitute parents for the child or children.
The agency, she said, promotes family-based care as it is very important for a child to grow up in a home environment. She pointed out that even when the child is taken into care they attempt to give the child the best care. According to her the staff in the government state homes are well paid and undergo ongoing training. That aside, Greene stressed that when caring for children a lot depends on the individual and their level of commitment, noting that while she is very committed to her job, she and the others who head the agency have to rely on frontline workers.
“The people at the ground level are the ones who do the care work,” Greene noted, adding that she loves to do case work as her biggest joy is moving a child from “level B to level A.”
“Our biggest challenge is to get the performance out of the frontline workers. And so there are challenges, but the procedure in the system and all the programmes and so, we have in place, but it is just the operation challenge,” Greene said. In addition, she explained, when it comes to human services throughout the world there are always problems at the frontline level.
But the agency will continue to work towards giving children a second chance.
