Good comes out of Beetham

IN THE Gospel of John when Philip tells Nathaniel about Jesus, he responds, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” When Sheila Prince, now a retired inspector, decided to start a police youth club in Beetham Gardens some of her colleagues asked her if anything good could come out of crime plagued Beetham.

And for more than a decade, she has helped to mould young minds including a future police officer and a law student with aspirations of becoming prime minister.

Sunday Newsday visited with Prince at the club last week. She was sitting with a group of young people and teaching them from a book about good character. On the walls are a number of newspaper articles about the club and its achievements; she has more in a scrapbook. They showcase some of the club’s achievements and milestones; winning all three prizes in a 2006 essay writing competition on drug abuse and illicit trafficking; placing third in the National Music Festival in 2006; exchange programmes to Washington DC and Canada; and meeting with former president George Maxwell Richards and performing music for the late prime minister Patrick Manning.

Prince herself is a national awardee, winning a Public Service Medal of Merit (Silver) in 2011.

We retired to the small kitchen area where she teaches the children etiquette and table manners. Prince recalled it all began in 1996, when she was asked by someone to fill in and do a lecture at Excel Composite Primary School in the Beetham. At the time, she was a corporal in the community policing section.

She recalled she was not comfortable with the lack of discipline displayed by the children.

“Their general behaviour was that of children who needed care, to be nurtured, shaped. Who needed somebody to make a difference.” She added: “I could not leave it alone.” Prince returned every Saturday to the school to meet the children but realised they needed their own building that was not in a school setting. “These children needed a home away from home.” Prince and a group of parents walked around the community and located the old Housing Development Corporation (HDC) credit union building. She approached former HDC managing director Noel Garcia and informed him of her vision to have a youth club at the building. Garcia agreed and had the “tattered” building upgraded. It was officially opened in 2005.

In retrospect, she believes it was divine intervention that she started the club. When she started, people told her it was a waste of time and expressed doubt that she could really help the young people. Even some of her colleagues did not understand what she was doing.

“Nothing can’t come out of them,” she recalled being told.

But she did not allow this negativity to deter her. Prince said she could have set up a club anywhere in Trinidad but felt the one in Beetham was her calling. The club currently has 15 children, age five and older. Prince said she is a disciplinarian and would prefer to have five children who are well mannered rather than 100 who are “all over”.

She gets assistance from people and groups but she is a staff of one. Asked about volunteers, Prince responded, “Who coming here? This is not Diego Martin. This is Beetham.” She said once or twice she got people to come and talk to the children, people who understand what it it is to be in a community like Beetham.

“You live at Beetham you start with a minus even though your intention is good.” Her goal is to see a child or an adult who is a law-abiding citizen, who understands who they are and can survive in their environment.

She has to see an improvement in the children’s attitude and the way they dress and speak.

“I can’t see children with their pants down to their bottom and jewellery all over. I have to instil values and morals. They have to know there are consequences for their actions.

And that in an environment of lawlessness not everything they see is right.” She explained it was about giving them the tools and the know-how to make right choices and the consequences of making wrong choices. Children, she said, should be taught about building character - something which is lacking - and about being courageous, responsible and honest.

“Teach them so they can be able to survive in a community which has no role models.” The children live in a community with guns, drugs and stolen items and people cannot pretend that they do not know about these things. She said some people refuse to tell children the truth which did not help them.

“If everybody turned their back on these children what would happen?” She said in the past leaders were people with a spiritual background but now they are people with four cars, a lot of “bling bling” and are able to command and control young people in a negative way.

“Where is that taking young people?” She said young people do not know what it is to dream because they are in bondage and have to do what they are told.

“Somebody controls their mind and spirit.

They are like a slave.” She said at times adults want to give children “emotional pleasures” of outings “all over the place” but believes they must also give them something of substance that will help them to survive.

“At the end of the day you have to make sure what you instil in them is what makes them the person they are in the future. You plant a seed and expect good fruits.” She said it was also important to instil in them a fear for God.

Club member Jadon Fortune, seven, spoke about his experience living in Beetham.

“It having a lot of shooting, killing, robbing.

But the community don’t like that, the shooting and killing. They would like the gang leaders to stop shoot, fight and do the right thing. Go down the right road and be honest to God.” He said at the club, where he has been a member for a few years, he learns about being honest, courageous and having integrity and doing what is right.

“Don’t be a follower, be a leader. Don’t bully.

Don’t fight.” Jalise Telesford, 10, has been a member of the club for about four years. Prince had asked the members to invite friends and neighbours and Telesford was invited by a cousin.

“Ms Prince teaches us to have good character and integrity. I like how she is teaching us to be.” Telesford in turn invited a cousin and her sisters. She described growing up in Beetham as hard.

“All this crime and stuff going on. I don’t understand why. Why they have to do it?” She said a lot of young children drop out of school and are “being bad” holding guns and drugs. Telesford said she is glad she went to Prince and was taught to follow God.

Prince said none of the children who have been in the club have ever ended up in juvenile court. However, she sees some of them on the streets and sometimes it is heartbreaking.

They still call her “Miss Prince” and believes they remember what she used to tell them.

One of the club’s success stories is 28-yearold WPC Lauren Frasier. She joined the club in 2003, when it was still housed at the Excel Primary School, after she was told about by her mother.

“The club mould me, shaped me and made me into the person I am today,” she said.

She recalled Prince had asked her what she wanted to be and back then she thought about an office or working in a bank. Prince suggested becoming a police officer and Frasier agreed, a decision she has never regretted.

This October, will mark her eight years in the service.

She described Prince as a no-nonsense person who instilled knowing wrong from right, and believing in yourself. Frasier said though she was from Beetham she never followed bad company and Prince was able to give her a push to dream big.

She was also thankful that through the club, members were able to go on outings and see outside Beetham.

“Some of them all they know is the Beetham.” Another success story is 22-year-old Kareem Marcelle, son of alderman Sherma Wilson. Marcelle, in a telephone interview, described life in Beetham as bittersweet. He recalled the intense poverty and being abandoned by his father when he was in Standard Four. It was at that time he got involved with the club. He said Prince really helped him and he leaned on the club and his mother for strength.

“You start going out and looking for help, someone to believe in you and build you back up,” he said.

Marcelle is currently employed as a facilities assistant at the National Infrastructure Development Company and is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in law. His goal is to be prime minister.

Frasier and Marcelle say they never left the club and remain associated with it.

As the interview, concluded a child approached Prince and asked, “Aunty can I read a book?” Prince said numbers do not matter to her but what matters is quality.

“I know all these children. Who they are, who they can become.”