By Glenda Anderson, Staff Reporter
MARLENE RODRIGUES-ROWE
THEY ALL know her as 'Miss Lallie', a tall, big-bodied, dark-skinned woman with locks, busy hands, quicksilver facial expressions and soft, almost smoky, eyes.
Today, in between shouting greetings from her small verandah to barefooted youth passing on the narrow pathway outside her gate, Marlene Rodrigues-Rowe talks about her passion for young people and her love for her community of Bay Farm Villas, Olympic Gardens. The area is a maze of tiny two-storey apartments, connected by a narrow network of walkways in West Central St. Andrew.
"There are some beautiful children here unpolished gems I call them but they have so many challenges around them. There's the violence and there's academic insufficiency. They have no guidance, no direction, no exposure," she says.
A 48-year-old mother of two, Rowe has been grooming inner-city children for years. Boys and girls come to her for help and advice. She says her one regret has been not going off to teachers college. Instead, she is a trained mediator, trained Red Cross volunteer, self-appointed social worker and mentor to scores of young people in her community.
"I work with all types, anywhere I see the need I gone with it," she said.
The Jamaica Library Service's bookmobile makes fortnightly trips to the community at her request. She operates a Homework Assistance programme just a stone's throw from her gate. She also teaches English Language part-time at the HEART Trust's Allman Town Skills Training Centre, and has volunteered at the Stella Maris Foundation's Skills Training Centre in Grants Pen, St. Andrew.
Her summer camp programmes, funded almost entirely out of pocket, are a favourite with children in the community. One of her co-workers at the Allman Town centre, Denise Edwards, calls her unconventional and resourceful. "She finds ways of motivating the students and is very involved in what she does. She's always working with young people, doing one community project or another, forming groups to play netball or teaching something all over the place."
Lydia Anderson, a student at the centre, has plans for a career in computer studies, but must first get through her academics. She says for the past four months Rowe has been helping her to make her dream happen.
Rowe explains her involvement this way: "After dealing with young people a lot and just seeing the pain, the understanding and appreciation comes to you that, yes, you do owe a service on this planet."
Come September she's off to school herself for a course in Managing Non-Governmental Organisations. Why? To better serve her community and the young people.
