Give me a chance out of poverty

Joniele Riley, Guest Columnist

This is an open letter to Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller.

Dear Mrs Simpson Miller, I am an ambitious young lady who has been trying, unsuccessfully, to seek help to further my education at the tertiary level at the University of the West Indies.

I write to you as a recent upper-sixth-form student/graduate of Wolmer's Girls' School.

I am 19 years old. I have always dreamt of becoming an attorney-at-law ever since I was a child. Over the years, I became socially aware of the many injustices in the society, and my convictions were further cemented in becoming an attorney in sixth form when I began doing courses like sociology and Caribbean studies. I was also a member of the debating club at my school.

As such, on completion of fifth form, I gained eight subjects, seven with distinctions. In lower-sixth form, I achieved in CAPE all four subjects I sat: sociology, communication studies, history, and Spanish. Currently, I am awaiting my Unit Two CAPE results in the same subjects.

Economic hardship

However, these achievements were not gained under normal circumstances. I have lived all my life in the Maxfield Park/Waltham Road area. I am the first of three children from a single mother. Each of my siblings' fathers is abroad. I hardly know who my father is, except during back-to-school time when I visit one of the remittance outlets to receive some money that he sends occasionally.

Madam Prime Minister, my mother has tried relentlessly over the years to help us, her children, and we have reciprocated and shown our gratitude to her by being academic stars in her life. Both my siblings attend prominent traditional high schools. Importantly, we are a close-knit family - one that is acutely aware of the value of education as a lifelong tool for upward socio-economic mobility.

However, poverty afflicts my extended family and relatives. As a result, even though they have helped sometimes, there is much room for improvement. Indeed, my dreams of becoming a lawyer had finally germinated recently when I applied to the University of the West Indies (UWI) Faculty of Law, and with this one first-time application and God's blessings, I was accepted. My UWI identification/registration number is 620078109

Challenges and ambitions

Madam Prime Minister, I would really like to enrol as a student at the UWI Norman Manley Law School in September. However, life's socio-economic realities pose so many challenges. I wonder if this dream will become a reality.

Each morning as I walked from Cross Roads, down Marescaux Road, towards my school, I kept wondering how I would get the financial resources to realise my dream. Truly, I also think about my two other siblings, and I cringe for them because, sooner or later, they, too, will be in my position.

Therefore, I crave the humane indulgence of anyone who may be reading this letter and who could, through any organisation or anyone who you may know, extend the milk of human kindness towards my tertiary academic journey.

I am a great promise and a possibility. Importantly, I am aware that the world and no one owes me nothing. So much gratitude is reserved for the kind-hearted and generous individuals who may respond to my need to achieve my academic dreams, so that one day, I may be able to not only help my family, but my country, through my profession as an attorney-at-law.

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