MOST PEOPLEe meet an attractive woman and automatically judge her by her looks. Sadly, I was one of those culprits. That was until I met Raquel Harewood.
It was a rainy day. Traffic was awful and I was running a little late for an interview with the newly crowned queen of the Holetown Festival. When I finally arrived at the beautiful Mango Bay hotel in Second Street, Holetown, in no time at all I spotted her – a statuesque beauty seated in the lobby.
I complimented her about her good looks, and when the 24-year-old began to speak I realised how shallow I must have sounded.
Of course, she is very appealing to the eyes but from speaking to her I recognised that her beauty ran far deeper than what my eyes could see on the surface: she is intelligent, articulate, focused, determined and has a very pleasant personality.
A graduate of Combermere School – the “University of Waterford”, as she puts it, Harewood is now into her final year in social work at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill campus. And within the next five years, her goal is to establish a practice specialising in child and family services.
“People often see people like me and assume pretty face and empty vessel but I believe beauty fades and can only take you so far, while intellect can be had for the rest of your life and take you leaps and bounds beyond,” she said, almost trying to relieve my slight embarrassment.
Harewood’s philosophy is: “The woman who follows the crowd usually goes no further than the crowd. But the woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places that no one has ever been before.”
This axiom has been the long-rooted reason Harewood desires a career in social work.
“There wasn’t a particular occurrence or something specific that happened. I guess it was just innate. That is the sort of passion I have because I just love people and helping people in general,” she said.
The Spooner’s Hill, St Michael resident explained it was through this path that she wanted to teach young girls and boys about the confidence to be derived when one uses whatever talents they have to the fullest capacity to accomplish whatever goal they set for themselves.
That was why she decided to enter the Miss Holetown pageant and use it as a platform to tout her objective.
“Social work is very important to me simply because I love helping people, and social work is a helping profession . . . . You have to put all of your baggage aside to help someone else and to make a better life for them so I definitely have a deep love for social work, more specifically with children,” she said.
Among Harewood’s concerns were the reported number of young people who run away from home, as well as suicides.
She opined this was why she believed the job and role she wants to play is so important to society.
“The whole issue about child abuse is something that is really emotional for me because we are the protectors of these future generations. We should not be the ones that they fear the most. So I definitely want to create a solace, an avenue or some place that they can come and talk to someone about what is going on in their household.
“I find in a lot of these instances these children don’t have anyone to talk to and they just have to suffer in silence. Then we hear about a 12-year-old committing suicide. That is something foreign to me – at 12 years old committing suicide was the farthest thing from my mind.
“There is a need for social workers in primary schools and I think if you start with these children from the time they are very small . . . the issues that they face in secondary school and so on would be on a much smaller scale,” she added.
Harewood said that as a female she knows how it feels to need someone to talk to.
“I think a lot of the times these girls [that are runaways] don’t have anyone to talk to or let them know what is going on. Rather than a strong arm . . . they need counselling.
“I think the more you push the more they resist, so I guess it is all about the approach that we take with these young girls that are running away. We have to start first by finding out what is the initial reason or problem that they take the course of fleeing the home.”
Harewood may have only one year’s reign as queen but she is already looking to the future to further her objective.
“I actually was suggesting that I do a lot more work with young children and I just have this idea in my head about going around to schools, talking to children and finding out what is the stuff they struggle with on a daily basis and how I can as Miss Holetown can help.
“I want to use the title as a platform in my social work profession but I also want to use it to give a voice to the proverbial voiceless – those whose voices aren’t loud enough to be heard by everyone,” she said. (SDB Media)
