Jolan­da Charles

Walk­ing through the sun-drenched streets of Scar­bor­ough with Michael Dun­can is like sweep­ing through small town USA with the likes of Michael Jor­dan. Both men are sim­i­lar in terms of their im­pres­sive stature–as well as the stag­ger­ing re­spons­es they evoke in those they en­counter.

Dun­can seems to know every­one. He po­lite­ly greets all he en­coun­ters, from the hus­tlers, huck­sters, hoboes and street urchins to the well-dressed passers-by. He wears his ca­su­al po­lo, em­bla­zoned with the New Hope Prison Min­istry in­signia, like a man­tle; it is his bea­con to To­ba­go's so­cial­ly op­pressed that help is here.

The dawn of new hope

Ac­cord­ing to Dun­can, pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer at the New Hope Prison Min­istry's To­ba­go Chap­ter of Sev­enth-day Ad­ven­tists, the num­ber of so­cial­ly de­prived peo­ple cur­rent­ly in­hab­it­ing the streets of Scar­bor­ough has in­creased con­sid­er­ably over the past three decades, due to the ris­ing tide of pover­ty, ju­ve­nile delin­quen­cy, un­em­ploy­ment, drug ad­dic­tion, men­tal ill­ness and var­i­ous oth­er so­cial ills plagu­ing the once un­spoiled and tran­quil is­land. He and oth­er mem­bers of the 34-year-old non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion, es­tab­lished by for­mer Car­rera Is­land Prison in­mate Richard Bark­er, have been work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly, both with­in and out­side the prison sys­tem, to as­sist and re­ha­bil­i­tate cur­rent, for­mer and per­haps po­ten­tial of­fend­ers by pro­vid­ing them with holis­tic sup­port.

"Most times, when broth­ers and sis­ters are in­car­cer­at­ed, the par­ents don't come to see them, so New Hope Prison Min­istry has to pro­vide all the nec­es­sary things," said Dun­can. Ser­vices like or­gan­is­ing bail mon­ey, le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion and fees, and even act­ing as char­ac­ter wit­ness­es for their charges are among the good acts that New Hope per­forms. But the ques­tion as to where to house ex-of­fend­ers once they have served their time and are prepar­ing to re-en­ter so­ci­ety is a re­cur­ring prob­lem that New Hope faces. "Our aim, or at least what we are clam­our­ing for here in To­ba­go, is that we need a halfway house to house all these peo­ple."

Out of the fry­ing pan

To prove his point, Dun­can in­vit­ed me to vis­it the area of Scar­bor­ough re­ferred to as The Ant's Nest. The name sug­gests chaos and cer­tain dan­ger but the re­al­i­ty is quite piti­ful. Lin­ing the nar­row road­side are the makeshift beds and shel­ters of the home­less vic­tims of drug ad­dic­tion and pros­ti­tu­tion who have made it their home–de­spite a con­stant on­slaught by lo­cal po­lice. "These broth­ers you see here came through the prison sys­tem and they end up here. Some come from Char­lottesville, some even fur­ther," Dun­can lament­ed, ges­tur­ing to­ward the four grungy-look­ing men who were dili­gent­ly ply­ing their trade, wash­ing ve­hi­cles for wait­ing cus­tomers near­by.

"Now, the cul­ture in To­ba­go has changed," said Dun­can. "Long time, 20 to 30 years ago, you had no need for a halfway house be­cause au­to­mat­i­cal­ly your fam­i­ly would read­i­ly ac­cept you. To­day, they ei­ther dis­own you or they don't want to have no part with you. So these broth­ers end up com­ing on the streets. They're the home­less peo­ple, but they are peo­ple. They are hu­man and they must have a voice and that is where the New Hope Prison Min­istry comes in–as their voice, in­ter­ven­ing on their be­half."

Help­ing oth­ers help them­selves

But restor­ing ex-cons is not all that New Hope is about. The 25-mem­ber To­ba­go Chap­ter al­so col­lab­o­rates with the var­i­ous vil­lage coun­cils to reach out to ado­les­cent par­ents and sin­gle moth­ers in the com­mu­ni­ties, pro­vid­ing coun­selling and mon­ey for food, school books and uni­forms. "Some­times, we even go to PTA meet­ings to sup­port the chil­dren while the moth­er is work­ing," said Dun­can. The Min­istry host­ed a ben­e­fit con­cert at Bish­op's High School last Sat­ur­day evening to help sup­port its projects–main­ly the build­ing of the much-need­ed halfway house–as fund­ing is al­ways a source of con­cern.

Ac­cord­ing to Dun­can, New Hope has been back­ing their work through the use of a five-acre plot of agri­cul­tur­al land, on which ex-of­fend­ers grow pro­duce which is mar­ket­ed to the ho­tels and restau­rants on both is­lands. But the or­gan­i­sa­tion can­not af­ford to as­sist these peo­ple for more than nine months at a time and many are forced to re­turn to the streets. "So far, we are try­ing to con­vince the cor­po­rate sec­tor to come on board with us. We do not get fund­ing from the Di­vi­sion of So­cial Ser­vices, THA, al­though we part­ner with them to help them with their work–be­cause cer­tain places they can't go and even if they go, no­body would re­spond to them," said Dun­can. "Every now and then, some Good Samar­i­tan would hear us on the ra­dio or see us on the tele­vi­sion and say 'I will give you all a con­tri­bu­tion 'cause you all do­ing good work,' but we need to con­vince peo­ple."