Oh God, what is going on?

It is a very, very sad day for Trinidad and Tobago. To come to terms with the reality of what little six-year-old Sean Luke had to endure before he died, is extremely difficult to grasp, difficult to understand and believe. It must have been something from out of this world, whatever it was, it had to be evil incarnate and inhuman.

The absolute grief and mental torture that his mother Pauline is agonising over, is probably equivalent to little Sean’s physical torture. To her I gently say, that we grieve with you and all pray for you and your son, pray that you will be showered with courage to continue life, with the understanding that Sean is now at peace and embraced by our Lord. That he suffers no more.

At times like this, and when we learn of absolute abuse to children, it awakens in us the realisation that organisations such as The Coalition against domestic abuse and violence against women/ children, are important and necessary ‘arteries’ in our society. A long standing and well recognised body such as The Coalition, must be kept alive and given the assistance needed, to continue the wonderful work it has been doing.

The Government of the day must realise that many of our NGOs like the Coalition, do tremendous social work indeed, we fill in the large cracks that they created, cracks that are getting larger due to lack of care and funding, and we all know that Trinidad and Tobago is a wealthy country, yet we still see so much poverty and strife in our society. Where is the social conscience?

More money must be channelled downwards where it is most needed, before building stadiums and smelter plants. We the NGOs are the weave in the social fabric that hold it all together but very slowly it is being shredded away. There are over 3,000 NGOs, CBOs and FBOs in Trinidad and Tobago. If we ask ourselves why are there so many, the obvious answer is that they all cover a void.

WAND (Women in Action for the Needy and Destitute) is about to embark upon a new project which is to build and equip a new facility; a dormitory/drug rehabilitation centre for women. An in-house residence with a small vocational school attached.

The only existing one is in total disrepair and in dire need of everything under the sun. The programme is impressive, needs more work, although it has been working for several years. Again, funding is a problem. The need for an in-house drug rehab centre for women is so needed in this country and should have been instituted years ago by the authorities. In effect, our ‘little’ organisation WAND, is committed and inspired to this project. Our problem at the moment is finding suitable land to construct this drug rehab centre, as the existing one sits on a main road.

To Beulah Andrews’ anguish to, “What is going on in this country,” the grandmother of another sodomised little boy, to the grandmother of Akiel Chambers and others, we all ask the same question: Oh God, What is going on?

Simone de la Bastide

Chairman WAND

Port-of-Spain