Gillian Cal­iste

On Fri­day, No­vem­ber 11, Sher­ma Wil­son ex­pe­ri­enced heart­felt joy mixed with re­lief and tinged with a bit of sad­ness–the sad­ness of a moth­er who knew the pain of her child as he swam for his life against per­ilous tides; pain that had brought them to that mo­ment.

It was her son's mo­ment and Wil­son was not about to de­prive him of it.

She joined in as her 28-year-old son Ka­reem Mar­celle em­braced the ju­bi­lant crowd from his com­mu­ni­ty of Beetham Gar­dens that had gath­ered on the steps of the Hall of Jus­tice to help him cel­e­brate his suc­cess. Mar­celle was one of 196 new at­tor­neys in­duct­ed in­to the law fra­ter­ni­ty on No­vem­ber 10 and 11. But his jour­ney had been far dif­fer­ent from those of his peers.

“He prob­a­bly died so many times in­side, but he was able to be re­born and re­turn with more strength, so I liken him to the phoenix, ris­ing from the ash­es,” Wil­son told Sun­day Guardian a few days lat­er.

Quick to ob­serve that her son was not the first suc­cess sto­ry from Beetham Gar­dens as there were en­gi­neers, phar­ma­cists, ath­letes, and even re­cent­ly a doc­tor who orig­i­nat­ed from the area, the moth­er of four felt Mar­celle's ap­point­ment to the bar–a first for Beetham–was wor­thy of praise.

“They ask why you cel­e­brate. Peo­ple say every­one goes through prob­lems in life. I un­der­stand that every­body has a sto­ry to tell, but com­ing from a place like Beetham it's a great achieve­ment. I think Beetham Gar­dens is the most stig­ma­tised com­mu­ni­ty in this coun­try...even be­cause of phys­i­cal­ly where we are sit­u­at­ed be­tween a man­grove and a dump site,” she said.

Be­tween hunger pangs, fam­i­ly tur­moil and bul­lets, her son man­aged to es­tab­lish him­self as a youth ac­tivist and leader; the per­son to go to for help with a work rec­om­men­da­tions, em­ploy­ment, and school sup­plies or to help or­gan­ise cul­tur­al and sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties in their trou­bled com­mu­ni­ty. Through ap­pear­ances in main­stream and so­cial me­dia, he is known na­tion­al­ly for his so­cial work and ac­tivism in which he has been in­volved since age 12. He has been in the head­lines al­so as the first re­cip­i­ent of the Makan­dal Daa­ga Schol­ar­ship in Law in 2017 from UWI.

As Mar­celle gave, oth­ers gave to him. His moth­er ex­plained that as a sin­gle par­ent for most of his life, she man­aged to keep him and his three old­er sib­lings on an up­ward course in their hot spot com­mu­ni­ty plagued by pover­ty, crime and gang war­fare through her foun­da­tions of strong val­ues from her par­ents, God's Word, an ear­ly child­hood course and the sup­port of fam­i­ly and men­tors.

Ini­tial­ly stum­bling as a strict par­ent or “tiger mum”, she said along the way, she learnt how to be firm but flex­i­ble. She felt par­ents should in­volve their chil­dren in youth groups, clubs and ex­tra-cur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties, and sug­gest­ed that Gov­ern­ment put greater em­pha­sis on par­ent­ing poli­cies to teach par­ents how to nur­ture their chil­dren, and on prop­er safe hous­es for women and chil­dren.

“It takes a vil­lage, a com­mu­ni­ty to raise a child and with Ka­reem, it took a na­tion. Trinidad and To­ba­go helped me raise Ka­reem,” she said.

Wil­son has shared her sto­ry and mes­sage on the Evening Dri­ve as a for­mer ra­dio host along­side the late Spran­galang and the late Mar­cia Henville at Pow­er 102 FM and al­so had a Sat­ur­day morn­ing seg­ment en­ti­tled “Smelling Like a Rose”. She left ra­dio about three years ago and works as a so­cial and com­mu­ni­ty ser­vices of­fi­cer at the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion. She was al­so an al­der­man at the San Juan Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion from 2013 to 2016, and long be­fore these roles, she had been a com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist.

Wil­son would fight for caus­es, make rep­re­sen­ta­tion for the peo­ple, and help oth­ers in her com­mu­ni­ty. She was hap­py when Mar­celle, her last child, showed qual­i­ties and in­ter­ests sim­i­lar to hers.

“The spir­it I had in me, he had in him,” she re­called.

She traced her ties with the Beetham com­mu­ni­ty to her child­hood.

The fourth of 13 chil­dren, Wil­son spent her ear­li­est days with her moth­er, Hil­da Wil­son, step­fa­ther, Ken­rick Alex­is and the first of her sib­lings in Shan­ty Town, a hotch­potch of shacks at the north­west­ern end of what is known to­day as Beetham Gar­dens.

Run­ning around the ram­shackled neigh­bour­hood and play­ing by the stand­pipe, life was care­free for the chil­dren. But as Wil­son ex­plained, her moth­er would gath­er rags from the dump, wash them and sell them to a mop com­pa­ny, while her step­fa­ther would earn mon­ey sell­ing bot­tles. They were poor but her par­ents taught them val­ues. Her moth­er was lov­ing and would give her last morsel of food to the neigh­bours. Her step­fa­ther made sure to take care of his house­hold.

The fam­i­ly hap­pi­ly gained a two-bed­room du­plex flat when the Shan­ty Town com­mu­ni­ty was re­lo­cat­ed to a new place called Beetham Gar­dens south of Laven­tille and north­east of Sea Lots.

Af­ter her first child–a son–Wil­son quick­ly be­came preg­nant with a sec­ond and left her par­ents' home to go high­er up Beetham to live in a du­plex flat with the chil­dren's fa­ther who had been dis­placed from John John when a large fire had gut­ted the area. With two sons 11 months apart, the men in the area used to say she would be like her moth­er and make 13. She gave birth to a daugh­ter years lat­er and made sure to “tie” her “tubes” (tubal lig­a­tion) af­ter she had Ka­reem.

Af­ter she had her first two boys, Wil­son had be­come qual­i­fied as an ear­ly child­hood ed­u­ca­tor through SER­VOL and ran her own kinder­garten in the com­mu­ni­ty for a time.

“I al­ways loved work­ing with chil­dren and that formed part of my foun­da­tion to be­come a bet­ter par­ent. I know there's no such thing as a per­fect par­ent. My par­ents weren't per­fect, so from that, my first two sons got the kneel­ing on the grater with their hands up in the air, you know, the ex­treme pun­ish­ment. When I got in­to ear­ly child­hood ed­u­ca­tion, I re­alised there was a bet­ter way. So Ka­reem and his sis­ter were able to get that bet­ter form of par­ent­ing from me,” Wil­son said.

But be­ing the youngest, Mar­celle felt the “brunt” of the pain when­ev­er the fam­i­ly faced crises. In his SEA (Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment) year, his fa­ther, who had bare­ly helped his moth­er make ends meet as a mar­ket sweep­er, left for the US. While the fam­i­ly thought he would go for three months and earn some mon­ey to ease their sit­u­a­tion, he had been plan­ning to take full ad­van­tage of the big streets and bright lights of Amer­i­ca of­fered to him by a woman with whom he had been in­volved be­fore he had met Wil­son. News that he had got­ten mar­ried to the woman al­so hit hard.

Wil­son tried to be strong, re­mem­ber­ing what her own moth­er had taught her about keep­ing a brave face.

“But I cried. I re­al­ly cried for some time. I was on­ly hu­man.”

Des­per­ate to feed her chil­dren, she tried sell­ing chick­en and chips and run­ning a par­lour, but like the kinder­garten, the ven­tures failed. As trans­porta­tion mon­ey was scarce, she had to make the chil­dren take turns go­ing to school.

Push­ing through SEA, Mar­celle passed for the gov­ern­ment-sub­sidised pri­vate school Daniel's Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege. He was elat­ed that he had got­ten a “col­lege” but his moth­er did not have the heart to break his en­thu­si­asm.

Still, it seemed that for every dis­ap­point­ment, some­one was sent by a high­er force to steady Mar­celle and keep him go­ing.

Daniel's Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege closed soon af­ter he took up class­es there and his for­mer pri­ma­ry school teacher Mr Lo­gan in­ter­vened, tak­ing the child to Trin­i­ty Col­lege in Mar­aval where Llewellyn “Short Pants” McIn­tosh was prin­ci­pal. They saw some­thing in him, his moth­er said. He proved them right, lat­er mak­ing the de­bate club and be­com­ing the Na­tion­al Youth Par­lia­men­tar­i­an in 2012.

But an­oth­er blow to the fam­i­ly came when Mar­celle was about to write CSEC and his fa­ther was charged with the mur­der of his Amer­i­can wife. Lat­er, news that he had been sen­tenced to 30 years to life al­so shook them.

On Wil­son's birth­day one year, they had to en­dure the hor­ror of gun­shots rain­ing on their roof and Mar­celle run­ning in­to traf­fic for his life af­ter com­ing face to face with gun­men in a case of mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty when he had gone back to help a friend who had stood frozen af­ter every­one else had scam­pered with the spray of bul­lets.

Through all his ad­ver­si­ty, Mar­celle had nev­er giv­en up on his one dream, his moth­er said. From his Sa­cred Heart Boys' RC Pri­ma­ry School, he had al­ways watched the ca­pa­ble-look­ing at­tor­neys in their smart at­tire at the near­by Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions of­fice and longed to be one of them. He tried at­tend­ing law school, but at the time, the Gov­ern­ment As­sis­tance for Tu­ition Ex­pens­es pro­gramme (GATE) was un­der re­view, and he had to drop out be­cause of the fam­i­ly's fi­nan­cial con­straints.

One day be­fore the ap­pli­ca­tion dead­line, a friend told him about a new schol­ar­ship–the Makan­dal Daa­ga Schol­ar­ship in Law and en­cour­aged him to ap­ply. His im­pact­ful com­mu­ni­ty work helped him to beat out oth­er lo­cal and re­gion­al ap­pli­cants.

“He called me cry­ing and I couldn't tell that there was joy in the tears. I want­ed to know if some­thing had hap­pened to this child,” Wil­son said, re­call­ing the day they found out her son had won.

“Ka­reem is a dream­er, a be­liev­er,” she com­ment­ed more than once, adding that he works and makes things hap­pen.

Her son has worked tire­less­ly in groups such as the Beetham Gar­dens Vil­lage Coun­cil, BE­YOND and the Pos­i­tive Im­pact Or­gan­i­sa­tion which car­ry out food dri­ves and of­fer sports and cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties, guid­ance, aca­d­e­m­ic as­sis­tance and sup­plies to stu­dents. An an­nu­al Christ­mas par­ty for chil­dren is one of his most re­ward­ing projects.

Ad­vis­ing oth­er par­ents on nur­tur­ing suc­cess­ful charges, Wil­son said: “Love your chil­dren un­con­di­tion­al­ly but don't let that cloud your par­ent­ing, be con­sis­tent. Know them as in­di­vid­u­als be­cause some­times par­ents com­pare their chil­dren. I start­ed off do­ing that and then I re­alised that wasn't the right way. Be good ex­am­ples, teach them to share, to be kind. Find time to spend with them, ob­serve them, pop some pop­corn, play some domi­noes, and let them feel at­tached to you and vice ver­sa. With each mis­take they make, use it to teach them as a life les­son.”

The grand­moth­er of six felt that a par­ent­ing pol­i­cy could teach par­ents how to deal with their role. She said if peo­ple re­al­ly un­der­stood what fam­i­ly was about, there would be no such en­ti­ties as sin­gle-par­ent house­holds as the ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty would step up and bol­ster such fam­i­lies.

A shirt here, some school books there, it was her own fam­i­ly that held her up, she re­called.

She al­so had praise for a long list of men­tors and well-wish­ers who helped chart Mar­celle's course, in­clud­ing his pri­ma­ry school teacher Mr Lo­gan who took him to Trin­i­ty, the school's prin­ci­pal Llewellyn McIn­tosh, head of the Beetham Po­lice Youth Club and re­tired po­lice in­spec­tor Sheila Prince, In­spec­tor Ian Charles an In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF) of­fi­cer of the Hearts and Minds com­mu­ni­ty out­reach pro­gramme and Beetham Youth Club, head of IATF Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Os­wain Subero, for­mer dean of the Holy Trin­i­ty Cathe­dral Canon Knol­ly Clarke, David Muham­mad, the friend who told him about the schol­ar­ship at­tor­ney Jonathan Bha­gan, UWI and his pro­fes­sors, and Pamela El­der and As­so­ciates.

Wil­son al­so lament­ed the lack of safe places for women and chil­dren suf­fer­ing abuse. It was to a cousin's house that she fled for a week when she had her first two chil­dren to es­cape the blows of their fa­ther. But hav­ing left her two boys be­hind as her cousin could not pro­vide shel­ter for them, she re­turned home af­ter a week. With her com­mon-law hus­band's stern warn­ings for her not to start a new re­la­tion­ship, even af­ter he had left for the States, she con­stant­ly lived in fear of him.

Fear drove her to ac­cept a home in Cen­tral sev­er­al years ago. She want­ed Mar­celle and his sis­ter to leave with her, but with all his re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in Beetham Gar­dens, he de­cid­ed to stay.

On No­vem­ber 11 out­side the Hall of Jus­tice, a sur­prised Mar­celle was swal­lowed in a sea of sup­port­ers clad in black and white. Their colour scheme rep­re­sent­ed his law robes. His moth­er said his sis­ter and oth­ers want­ed to make a big state­ment to him, but she was con­cerned that with the Hall of Jus­tice be­ing sa­cred grounds, peo­ple might have thought it to be a ri­ot or protest. They in­formed the po­lice and print­ed jer­seys bear­ing tags like “Beetham Proud: Ka­reem Mar­celle.”

She re­mem­bered hav­ing to take a while to process the tow­er­ing fig­ure of her son walk­ing the steps of the build­ing in his new robes.

“His achieve­ment is the end of one chap­ter; he has more to ac­com­plish,” she said.