Fusion Caribbean Update June 2010

In the past two weeks the eyes of the world have been on Jamaica for some devastating reasons. There is also a lot of news for us at Fusion Caribbean since our last update but I will focus most of this newsletter on some of the recent events and how they have affected Jamaica, particularly West Kingston and those communities and people that we work with, just giving the other news in brief.

It has been a deeply saddening time for us as a nation, and right now West Kingston is experiencing a massive range of emotions from grief, to anger, to a confused numbness and shock.

It would take a long time to give an accurate picture of all of this, including the circumstances that led to these events, what then took place and the ongoing challenges, but some of it has been covered in the international media so I will give a very brief summary and then focus on the story of one young man in particular.

At 6pm on Sunday May 22nd the Prime Minister declared a limited state of emergency for the corporate area (central Kingston) because gangs had attacked four police stations. This attack came a few days after hearing the news that the warrant for the arrest of “Dudus” (one of Jamaica’s most notorious area leaders from Tivoli Gardens) had been approved in order for him to be extradited to the USA to answer charges of drug trafficking and illegally trading guns. He is strongly supported in Tivoli and some surrounding communities because of keeping “peace and security” for the residents and helping to pay for school books, providing children’s fun days, paying for hospital bills for the sick and elderly etc, etc.

Just two days before the violence, residents marched to show their support for him. But on Sunday morning at around 11am armed gangs made a pre-emptive strike on these four police stations and two policemen were shot (and one died) and one police station was burned to the ground. Over the next few days, the police and the army launched an invasion on this strongly defended community to regain control of the area, while gangs from other communities took up the fight against the police (16 police stations being attacked in total and one more burned down). In this operation to enter Tivoli Gardens and try to apprehend Dudus, 73 people were killed in Tivoli alone (a figure which may still rise, and does not include the deaths in other parts of Kingston or Spanish Town which also suffered a high death toll). The main hospital, which is close to Tivoli, had shooting in the streets around it, with patients and staff having to dive for cover when shots hit the building. There were over 700 arrests, many schools and business had to close and yet, as I write this, there is still no sign of “Dudus”.

One young man who was in Tivoli Gardens on Sunday morning was Lavianna Wilson, or “Roofy” as he was nicknamed. He was 19 years old and I have known him since he was 11, as one of the first members of the youth basketball club I ran in Trench Town. He had since started to come to Festivals as a volunteer, Day Trips, the “Yard Flexx” Bible studies and was very much part of the Fusion family here.

Roofy is in the checked shorts at a recent day trip

Since getting a job he had come to our programmes less regularly, but had recently been making sure he was available to come on our monthly Day Trips as a leader. Two Day Trips ago, Patrick (one of our leaders) was commenting with one of the peer leaders on how much Roofy had matured and really come of age as he saw him patiently caring for the young people on the day and being a real help to the team.

Roofy lived with his father and step mother in Trench Town, but his natural mother lived in Tivoli Gardens. He had been living with his step mother since he was 9 months old, and was one of the few kids who grew up in a home with both a father and a mother (even though she was not his natural mother.) He has been more in contact with his real mum over the last few years, as her health has deteriorated (I think it is diabetes but I am not 100% sure of that) - she is pretty much housebound so he often goes down to see her, cook for her, do some shopping and just make sure she is OK, which his father and step mother have been encouraging him to do.

Roofy received a call from his mother on Sunday morning before all the shooting started, asking him to come and bring her some money because she didn't have any to buy food. When all the violence started he could not leave the community and return home.

During the operation the police kicked in a door in the property adjoining his mother’s house, and he came to the door to see what was happening. He ran back into the house and the police then kicked in the door to their house and despite being unarmed and his mother hugging him and pleading for his life because he had just come down to bring her something to cook with, they dragged him out of the house and shot him dead on the veranda in front of her. With 73 dead and the latest news on guns recovered being only 32 guns, it is likely that he was one of many who died unarmed – including at least 2 women and some younger teenagers.

To add to the family’s distress, when I went to see them on the Thursday after his death they told me that they had seen his body in the Cemetery early that morning, along with several others. The security forces had taken them there, which raised speculation that they were planning to bury them without the knowledge or consent of the families. When the media showed footage of this the security forces responded by saying that the bodies were refused at the morgue because they were badly decomposed and had to be taken to the cemetery for autopsies there before burial. In spite of this claim, the bodies have all now been transported to a morgue for autopsies and inspection by an investigation team that has been set up to look into the security forces' response. Roofy’s family have been told by the police that they will be able to get his body afterwards for a private funeral.

Roofy had first come into contact with our work through a basketball program in his community in 2002. He loved the sport but also quickly helped others in the group to respect the discussion part of the program. He had been raised going to church (unlike most of the young people who came to basketball) so helped us to establish that as a normal part of the group from the begining. As he grew up, Roofy was always such a willing helper for any work that we were doing, whether it was painting snakes and ladders in preparation for a festival or helping to make sandwiches for a Day Trip.

Roofy is in the one smiling in the middle

Despite very much growing up in a culture of survival he was never the kind of young person to go looking for fights with others. When the team started the Yard Flexx Bible studies at the beginning of 2007 (just as I was leaving for Australia to study for 9 months) he became one of the core group of young people that turned up to everything we did. That group became very close with Ashley (then Ashley Hansen) from Canada who was heading up the work while I was away, and when I returned he had become a peer leader for Day Trips, and was beginning to give back. He then became a coach when we started the junior basketball program, while still playing on the senior team, and gradually took on some sort of leadership role in other programs like festivals. As I mentioned before, he came less often since getting a job, but it was encouraging to hear of him reconnecting with his natural mother and caring for her in her illness. Over the last few months he had been coming to Day Trips again, and it was rewarding to see him taking responsibility so naturally. Loosing him at only 19 years old like this is such a tragedy, as well as a horrendous injustice… yet it calls on us as a team to increase our efforts so that other young people like him have the opportunities that he had to make more positive choices for their lives.

There are so many complexities involved in West Kingston, where residents have grown such a distrust in the police and vice versa – and what has just happened has now exacerbated those prejudices. But it is not only the police that West Kingston has such a complex relationship with, it is the rest of Jamaica as a whole. The inner cities have become so disconnected that there is a huge division between the “two Jamaicas” and Roofy’s death highlights the lack of respect for life that is given to residents of the inner city. So please pray for us as we seek to help bridge the gap between the two Jamaicas and encourage others to engage with a very neglected part of this country. We have learned many lessons over the years of working in these communities so are dialoguing with others who are actively involved in West Kingston so that we together can use this critical moment to heighten the rest of Jamaica’s awareness and garner some more commitment to the work of building cohesion and a sense of hope in the face of such challenges.

We are also currently working to raise some money to help the family bury Roofy, his father is a hard working man with 8 children in the house so doesn’t have anything saved to be able to handle the expense of a funeral (which is over 3 months' salary for him).

In other communities (like Majesty Gardens) the violence has had a destabilising effect, with several gangs increasing their activity, because of the sense of being able to use the opportunity while the police were occupied elsewhere. Thankfully in the last few days things have become a lot more peaceful in these communities, but the danger is that people will be too quick to gloss over the underlying issues in their haste to have things return to “normal”, which is why (as I mentioned before) we are working hard to make use of the opportunity.

A section of a testimony that Roofy wrote for us when he was 17 highlights how much of an impact intervention can have for the young people in these communities:

“My name is Lavianna Wilson and I am 17 years old, I use to attend the Charlie Smith High School. While training (basketball) on Saturday our coach invites us to Yard Flexx and Tuesday evening. What I learn? I learn how to treat one another with respect, share with others who are in need and also encourage each other.”
“They taught us about the bible, we want to thank them for that because if it wasn’t for them we would be out there fighting each other. We know that is wrong because Jesus said that we must care for our family and friends.”

Our team has also been very active in the weeks before the recent disturbances, with 3 days of Festivals in Majesty Gardens and also in Marverley, both of which reduced on the levels of violence in each community, restoring a sense of togetherness and hope. Another outcome of these festivals was the new volunteers that signed up for the ongoing work of running Kids Clubs and other programmes. We also had the “Fusion Americas Conference” in Canada in May – with Robert Dixon as well as David and Liz and family representing Jamaica. It was a good time of connecting across the Americas and working out more clearly how we will continue to support one another’s work.

The Day Trips have continued with (often last minute) funding coming in from a few new individuals who have begun to support the work in this way. On Saturday (June 5th) we will be having a shorter Day Out with the young people to give them a chance to get out of their communities, but also making sure that they get home before dark because Kingston is still under the state of emergency and there have been curfews in place at different times.

We also just finished a 10 week Foundations Course with participants from both the “up town” Jamaica and the inner cities, which was encouraging to see the response from the participants who had all taken such a journey throughout the course but also the sense of community that had built. When the violence erupted many of the participants from the unaffected communities were not able to relax until they had contacted participants from the other communities because they wanted to check if they were all OK. At the graduation, the overwhelmingly positive and appreciative feedback from the participants about the course was such an encouragement for our team to hear.

So there is a lot happening (far more than I have given space to), and the work is growing, but we still have many challenges.

Please pray for us in the following ways:

• Pray for a deep reconciliation in West Kingston
• Pray for a more integrated Jamaica that engages more positively with the individuals and communities of the inner cities. Also pray for wisdom and courage for us so that we would make the most of the opportunity to raise awareness and commitment to strategic work towards this.
• Pray for Lavinna’s family as they grieve his loss and also as they try to raise the funds for the funeral
• Pray for the other young people who were very close to him
• Pray for us to get an office / training centre / community centre (we have been working with no office for almost 2 months now)
• Pray as we prepare for a very full July and August, with Kids Club camps, Day Trips, a new youth drop in centre, a pilot “Pilgrimage” program, and also supporting training in Canada.
• Pray for Liz to get a new computer after hers crashed (she has a lot of Kids Club writing to do), as well as Jesse (one of our full time team).

Thanks again for your prayers and support,

David and the rest of the team.

The Fusion Caribbean Team

“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”

- Mother Teresa

Information and support

If you would like to receive information about how you can support the work of Fusion Caribbean either in prayer, by lending a hand, by telling others about us or financially then please contact us.

Tel: + 1876 296 6801

david.campbell@fusion.org.au

7 Swallowfield Close, Kingston 5, Jamaica, West Indies.