Kids of slain St Ann woman struggling to survive
School-age children selling on streets, one not attending classes
RELATIVES AND school administrators are pleading for assistance for the down-on-luck children of a slain St Ann woman whose body was found in a shallow grave on May 27.
Even before the mother’s death, struggling grandmother Betune Bromwell could scarcely maintain their needs, and three grandchildren – a 13-year-old boy and two girls aged 11 and eight – have for some time been selling on the streets and doing farming just to survive.
Expressing devastation at the murder of her 26-year-old daughter, Rochelle Glaze, Bromwell is desperate for state or private intervention.
“It rough! A mi one and dem. Nuh father no inna dem life,” said Bromwell from her Abraham district home in St Elizabeth on the weekend.
“Mother gone. Mi need help fi food and fi dem go school.”
Bromwell last saw her daughter in May when she visited and left for Negril, Westmoreland.
Glaze got a call from a friend about a job. And the next development Bromwell heard was the news of her death.
The suspect, who was reportedly caught on camera leaving with Glaze, 30-year-old Alromeo Pringle of Mount Ararat in the parish, has since been charged with her murder.
Bromwell is also giving thanks to community folk who have chipped in and cheered her up, but that does not erase the gravity of her predicament.
Julian Townsend, acting vice-principal of Marie Cole Memorial Primary, the school attended by the 11-year-old, has praised Bromwell for her dedication and involvement in her grandchildren’s lives.
Even before their mother’s death, Townsend said Bromwell took care of the trio, including turning up at parent-teacher association meetings.
The three children, who share a room, are in need of another bed and a mattress.
Townsend is worried that the two oldest children – and sometimes the younger girl – sell on the street.
“I was in tears one night when I saw the little girl on the street in the night, just she and her brother. They sell things like Irish potato and tomato and little things like that,” the vice-principal said.
The son, who is now in high school, has been engaged in farming since primary school and takes produce to class in a bid to finance their education and make a living.
Townsend said that she has had to assist with the provision of a school bag and lunch for the eight-year-old.
“I have to take that up on myself to ensure that I bring breakfast from my home for her or I buy something at the tuck shop for her,” she said.
Townsend is appealing for swift intervention for the family, including clothes, food, and financial assistance.
She is also hoping that the children will reclaim academic stability as they are among the tens of thousands of Jamaican students who were absent from classes during the coronavirus pandemic. The older girl did not attend classes as she had no gadget.
“They need stability. They need help financially to provide the basic amenities in life,”the vice-principal said.
A 2020 study by UNICEF Jamaica, in collaboration with the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CAPRI), showed that households suffered detrimental effects in health, education, and the protection of children during the COVID-19 outbreak.
“The key findings of the islandwide representative survey point to approximately 80 per cent of households suffering a reduction in income – on average 46 per cent of income was lost, with significantly greater loss (49 per cent) for households in the lower socio-economic bracket. Just under 45 per cent of households experienced food shortages due to COVID-19 restrictions. This was felt more acutely in female-headed households (56 per cent) and households with two or more children (57 per cent),” the report said.
Those data are real bread-and-butter issues for the Bromwell clan. The eight-year-old, for example, has not been attending school.
Townsend, during a community tour visiting students who were not online, said that the mother explained that her elder daughter’s father was not helping much, and as for the youngest, she did not have a birth certificate, so she could not be enrolled in school.
“I contacted someone to try and assist haven’t gotten any feedback as yet. I really want to get her in school, so in terms of school supplies, and all of that, they are going to need things,”the acting VP stressed.
To assist the family, contact Delmas Smith, principal of Marie Cole Memorial Primary: 876-382-9830.