Our modern societies have evolved into such that it is virtually impossible to say the word “politician” and not immediately associate it with thoughts of all things negative. And today’s politician appears to go out of his or her way to ensure that we almost always associate them with pain and suffering – sometimes worse.
In Barbados we are no different – the term politician is still quite easily associated with pond water. After three decades in journalism, however, I have learnt that in too many instances the blame (and sometime praise) we place at the feet of politicians should more appropriately be heaped on the shoulders of some of our sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, even mothers and fathers.
While our politicians fail far more than we would like, too often our public servants seem to delight in compounding the plight of ordinary citizens, often individuals and families, who can’t properly represent themselves and who have no one else to represent them.
Take the case of the Gollop family that was highlighted in last Thursday’s DAILY NATION. The first question that should be asked is: How in the name of all that is good and proper can we still in this modern age be turning on to our streets teenagers whose only crime is that they grew up in children’s homes and reached the age of 16?
Worse yet: how can an agency that is charged with the responsibility of protecting the welfare of the island’s children be bound by rules that say it can wash its hands of these children at age 16, even though it is visible, even to the blind, that they function at a level well below that age?
Then there is the Welfare Department, which has so far not challenged the assertions of a concerned landlord that when she sought assistance for this family, an official of that agency just simply told her to put them out if she has to. How uncaring can you get?
As we understand it, these children did not just happen to be wards of the state late in their childhood. Akeem, Matabo, Renaldo and Keeba all grew up in the Sterling Children’s Home or the Nightengale Home – and still have a 14-year-old sister in a home.
What kind of communication exists between these two vital state agencies? Did officers of the Welfare Department not know of the mental state of these young people who were depending on them for some semblance of a dignified standard of living?
I also can’t help but wonder what kind of surveillance the Welfare Department is engaged in when its clients could remain in rented facilities that were supposed to be paid for by the department, but on which there were arrears of $4 000.
Thankfully, landlord A. Mangera not only allowed them to remain in the home, but provided them with furniture, food and other necessities.
Now contrast that with her description of what occurred when she went to the Welfare Department seeking help for the family, as well as to see when they would settle the arrears:
“I went to the office on Monday and the officer informed me that the Welfare Department would not be able to pay the rent for Miss Gollop [the mother] and also that they would no longer be paying the rent for the two boys. I asked them what I was going to do with the family because I did not want to turn them out on the street.
“The officer told me that Government had no money to pay the rent for them. I?told the officer that I would have to call in the newspaper because I did not want to put this family out on the street, given their special circumstances. She told me to hold on, that she was going to speak to her senior. She came back after 20 minutes and told me, ‘Do what you have to do. If you have to put them out, put them out’.”
That is the crux of my problem. Too often we are left to conclude that those who have care little about those who have not. No politician works at the Welfare Department. These are individuals who are familiar enough with the system that they must know how to respond to people in such dire circumstances.
Unless they felt that the only way the family would get help was if their plight was, in fact, highlighted in the newspaper.
Fortunately, for every one uncaring public servant there appear to be at least a dozen ordinary Barbadians with large hearts. The outpouring of assistance has been overwhelming and today the family is much better off.
Those state workers who found responding to this family a bother should bow their heads in shame!
• Roy Morris is Editor-in-Chief of THE?NATION.