For the Mary’s Child Fundraiser, Frank151 will be hosting an online fundraiser of selected Estevan Oriol photography as featured in the Tuff Gong chapter of the Frank Book. These photos will be highlighted in an online gallery featured on Frank151.com, and available for purchase through the website.

The Mary’s Child Fundraiser will be starting October 1, 2007 and will run until December 25, 2007. All profits will be donated to the Bob Marley Foundation and funds will be earmarked specifically for helping Mary’s Child.

Below you will find the article on Mary’s Child, as featured in Frank Book 30 the Tuff Gong chapter.

Mary’s Child

Intro Cedella Marley
Words J. Nicely
Photos Estevan Oriol

“Woman is to be loved and appreciated. Woman is earth, the mother of creation.� Mary’s Child is very important to me. We grew up in a house full of love. What you don’t have you don’t miss. A box juice became our baseball and stones were our jacks .What you don’t have you don’t miss. We had love, a whole lot of love.

My father once said, “Children is wonderful, a part of my richnessâ€?. The girls who are now residents of Mary’s Child were born into a home where they should have known love, felt loved and be loved but instead their innocence was robbed from them. They are beaten, raped and basically told they are no good, all this bythe very people who gave them life and watched them take their first breath — this isn’t a home this is hell. The battle that these girls have faced is a battle that I can’t even imagine. Babies having babies. Mary’s Child is the only safe place to go to, basically the last escape. A little bit of heaven.

“Suffer the little children to come unto me�

Who imagines their father creeping into their beds and raping them? Who imagines a mother who sits in silence? And what is the punishment? 7 years. What is this girls sentence? Life.

“Why do you look so sad and forsaken? When one door is closed, another is open.�

Let us keep the doors of Mary’s Child open.

“Don’t be sad please,� proclaims Siste Lorna Wainwright. “Happy mommies have happy babies, and happy babies grow up into happy people.� When the girls of Mary’s Child first arrive here they may have forgotten what it feels like to be happy. Mary’s Child is not just a home, but a sanctuary for teenage mothers and their babies. Technically wards of the state, these girls have been sent here by the courts to live until they have their babies. In a country without a reliable and structured foster care system, the pregnant teens that end up at Mary’s Child may count themselves as the lucky ones. This private institution is playing a vital role, filling the gap between the family and the state.

As we enter Mary’s Child, Sister Lorna Wainwright of Tuff Gong International drops off some much needed supplies of diapers, baby powder, formula, and a few other basic necessities. The staff is grateful, every little bit helps. “We need as much as we can get, the simple things like Pampers are the most expensive thing in the world. Here we use both cloth diapers and Pampers. Pampers in the night, and cloth in the day time.�

If the girls can’t get into Mary’s Child, “they just go into another home that is not set up for pregnant girls,� explains Sister Lorna. “This is the only one on the island that is set up for pregnant teenagers, the others are just girls homes. You just mingle, you’re in the mix there. This is a safe place for them. Right now, it can only hold 12, but by the time the Rita Marley Foundation is done with the renovations, we should be able to have another 8 girls over here.�

There is no state run equivalent that provides a home for teenage mothers that attempts to keep baby and mother together. “No, not right now,� say’s Sister Lorna, “They’re working on it. This is now bringing them to the front where they are re-enacting the laws, and to make sure to give these girls some rights, because they have rights.�

In Jamaica, if a teenage girl gets pregnant, it is an unfortunate reality that all too often their families and society will look upon these girls with shame and scorn, turning their backs on them at a time when they need the most love and support. Sister Lorna says that “I guess maybe they don’t know that they’re innocent. They must be innocent at 12.�

An even more unfortunate reality is that a majority of the young girls staying at Mary’s Child are victims of rape or incest–a taboo subject in Jamaica that is not spoken about openly and honestly. “They even can get a rough time at the hospital,� says Sister Lorna. “the other day we called one of the hospital personnel,� and said ‘Don’t speak to her like that. Do you know she is a victim of rape? How dare you curse her in front of everybody else, cause she’s 13 and pregnant. Her father raped her. And then he gets seven years. They catch you with herb, you get 40.�

With no state run equivalent, Mary’s Child is the last option that offers a chance to keep the mother and child together. “Cedella Marley is thinking that we should try to keep mother and baby together for as long as we can,� says Sister Lorna., “but that entails employment, and other things that have to be worked out, so we can have a more long term plan for them. But this is a start, a wonderful start.�

As we walk through the home meeting the young girls, Sister Lorna reminds us to be “Careful with the cameras, not to get the faces. A lot these are victims of incest.â€? Highlighting the improvements and ongoing renovations to Mary’s Child, Sister Lorna explains, “This is Rita Marley’s pet project. With the help of the Rita Marley Foundation we have been able to give the girls sewing machines, setup a home-economic room, and setup a crochet and knitting program for the girls. Rita Marley wants to help empower these girls, so that when they leave here, and go back into their community, they have some kind of skill. Eventually we want to add computer training, and beauty and hair courses. It’s a bit emotional, because if the government finds that their living conditions are not right, they actually take the babies and put them in children homes, and the girls also go to homes, so the children are separated from the babies, which is really not too good.”

After the girls have their babies, re-integration into day-to-day life is a difficult task. According to Sister Lorna, “When they get pregnant the schools don’t take them back. The regular schools have a problem taking them back after they have had their baby. You see over there, there’s one that’s 12, and more than likely she’s a victim of rape. They have to get as much as they can here. This is home for them until the baby gets to maybe five months. If no mommy, no daddy, comes forward to take them. The baby goes one way, the mommy goes one way. Some babies are up for adoption. You don’t always have to go to Africa or Vietnam to adopt, you can come right to Jamaica. It’s becoming easier to adopt children from Jamaica through the Child Development Agency.�

When asked how the system and society has failed, Sister Lorna shares her thoughts, “I think that one of the things is that how to parent a child doesn’t come natural, you have to be taught how to be a parent, and I don’t think we have been taught to be a parent. And also family planning has broken down, and that has caused problems. It’s not just Jamaica, incest is all over the world.�

“You just have to educate the girls, it’s all well and good that they have a baby now, but what happens after? You must educate them. They must learn to sew, they must learn to crochet or knit, bake, they must learn to help themselves.�

To learn more about Mary’s Child, and other charities run by Mustard Seed Communities, go to www.MustardSeed.com

Help raise money for Mary’s Child by participating in the Frank151 Tuff Gong Mary’s Child Fundraiser