Oluatoyin Alleyne

“I feel empty, lost, angry, but I have hope,” Natasha Ann Lesprance said, close to tears that never came.

Ten years ago, already a mother of six children – three boys and three girls – Jocelyn Williams decided to become a foster parent; the experiences have not all been good, but it is a decision she does not regret and she plans to continue fostering for as long as she is allowed.

“I don’t know what Mother’s Day would be like for me this year because it is hard to see my daughter actually like fighting for her life.

Threatened with being pulled out of school and placed to work on his parents’ cash crop farm, a young Rajendra Persaud finally buckled down with his studies and today is a major contributor to the country’s science and research in the area of rice production.

“Girl right now I so stressed and I not sure what to do,” she said to me, her facial expression exhibiting just how stressed she was.

Growing up, the home of young Maxine Parris in Buxton was always filled as her parents’ benevolence stretched far and wide.

“University of Guyana (had a guy on a motorcycle follow me at night from all the way… [from]  by Bursary to the parking lot shining a light on my ass and commenting on the things he’d do if he had access to my ass), had cases of walking on the road and had guys following me for almost my entire journey.

She started her journey in the education field as a trainee teacher at the tender age of 15 and for 40 years was methodical and committed to improving the sector that prepares the leaders of tomorrow.

“I was so angry I had to stop, turn back and address that man.

Born in the small village of Haraculi (Good Hope) Kimbia in the Berbice River, William Andrew Boyle has come a far way and his commitment and perseverance over the years have seen him establishing Eureka Medical Laboratory, one of the best known in the country.

“She was a loving, kind and caring person, she was everything a mother could ask for,” Tejwattie Jinkoo better known as Sharda said as she described her dead daughter, 21-year-old Omwattie Gill known as Anjalie.

What over seven years ago started out as an act of faith, is today a school that caters for the needs of 15 children diagnosed with moderate to severe autism and if the organisers have their way the school doors would be open to more children as there is a long waiting list.

“I help out because there comes a time when we all need help and I am just doing my part even though I must tell you it is very hard, but I try,” she said almost breathlessly.

“We women can be our own biggest enemies,” she said. I nodded vigorously in agreement and added my two cents, stopping her thought process briefly.

A simple thank you from the mother of a patient who took her own life was enough to drive young Dr Colleen Bovell to branch off into clinical psychiatry; the gratitude from that mother was because Bovell had treated her daughter humanely, when everyone else had written her off.

It has been over six years since Sherry (not her real name) has been in the ‘system’ and now legally an adult she can walk out of state care any day, but she believes the stability and security she receives in state care would be replaced by chaos should she return to her family.

“Everybody know me as the bush woman because is years now I does sell bush, you know, and I does look after people.

After giving birth to a baby in the Georgetown Public Hospital, a mother leaves undetected making the child a ward of the state and more specifically the Child Care and Protection Agency (CC&PA).

“I felt horrible. I felt traumatised. And worse of all I felt like a criminal.

“That environment is not for me and I just had to pack up and leave.