- Carlington Wilmot/Freelance Photographer
Gomes
Avia Ustanny, Freelance Writer
THE YELLOW BUTTERCUP which has been chosen as the insignia of Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ), the citizens' action group, is a beautiful flower. Fair and fragile from a distance, closer up, you will find that its fruits bear sharp spines. The plant thrives in desolate places.
Like the buttercup, she may look like a frail female, but a more intimate meeting will reveal a personality as hardy as the buttercup plant in Dr. Carolyn Gomes. A doctor since 1980 and in private practice as a paediatrician since 1989, Dr. Carolyn Gomes, most recently, abandoned her practice to become the executive director of the activist organisation, the JFJ, for a year.
Her soft-voiced drawl is in sharp contrast with the heinous issues with which she tussles on a day-to-day basis. When Jamaicans see the earth soaked with blood from police killings, Carolyn Gomes is the person they call. The organisation she leads, the JFJ, is the first place people expect to hear from on matters of human rights and justice. The ease with which the association is made, now, is a hard won position.
In 2001 when members of the JFJ first went on the streets in protest of the Braeton incident, in which seven young men were killed by the police, they met a lot of hostility. Most recently, when they protested again after the March Amnesty International report on the matter, the response was much softer.
The increased level of public acceptance is a mark of success. This achievement, gained in the process of tilling the ground of public conscience, is what Carolyn Gomes left her medical practice to do.
Now, the JFJ needs to be restructured. "We had come so far purely on voluntary efforts. Now we needed to set up a structured organisation, to make place for staff including a full-time lawyer and to get funding," she explained to Outlook.
Dr. Gomes therefore came on board as executive director. On the day of the interview she was busy planning media projects, designing the next press campaign, gloating over the recent victory in the Michael Gayle case. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, in mid-March, accepted the JFJ petition for Michael Gayle (mentally impaired man killed by police and JDF soldiers in 1999). This was precedent setting. While the judgements of this Commission are not legally binding, its judgements will affect the reputation of the Jamaican Government internationally. It's all about getting the Government to be accountable.
Petitions
"A lot of the work we do here is petitioning," the doctor comments. "On April 17, the Patrick Genus (another police killing) matter will be on to Judicial review. Current work is also being done on the Access to Information Bill. We continue to work to sensitise Jamaicans on how important information is. Working on the Charter of Rights and a radio show. All of this aimed at making the state responsive and accountable."
Who is Carolyn Gomes, really?
Carolyn was born on March 30, 1958 at University Hospital in Kingston where her mother was a doctor. Mum, Denise Mitchell Thwaites, was a member of the first medical class at the University of the West Indies. Mitchell, in turn was the daughter of Grenadian Una Mitchell, a widowed woman who single-handedly raised five daughters and built her pharmacy business alone.
Dr. Gomes, in a Laura Tanna interview, disclosed that she is just two generations removed from a two-room household with a shared outside kitchen and a standpipe to bathe under. Carolyn Thwaites continued the medical tradition, graduated from UWI in May 1980, married fellow medical student Richard Gomes in June and started her internship July 1, 1980.
She also followed the family tradition of civic involvement. On election day December 1980, she begged off time from work to act as a presiding officer at a polling division where she spent the day guarding a ballot box.
After the election, Dr. Gomes spent six years in Trinidad with husband Dr. Richard Gomes. The family then returned to Jamaica at the end of 1986.
Qualified as a paediatrician in 1988, Dr. Gomes became a Senior Resident in casualty at Bustamante Hospital for Children. Soon, she moved on to private practice, doing well at it.
The gas riots in 1999 were what changed her life.
The beginning
As husband Richard Gomes recalls it, right after the gas riots "I was not here I remember Carolyn calling me about the formation of Jamaicans for Justice. There was the possibility of being at risk, but Carolyn and myself have sorted this out. Since then, we have shifted our foundation."
With his wife's most recent decision to abandon her practice for a year what did she give up? How was her family affected?
Carolyn Gomes comments that she is certainly earning much less now than she did as a doctor. Her husband is very supportive, she says.
Though her husband Richard says: "We have accepted that each person plays a role, each person has a right to reach their full potential in the relationship," he also states that he was concerned about her leaving the job for a whole year.
"That certainly was a bit more of a concern. I was certainly more sceptical about that move from the point of view of how we would cope financially we have four children, one at UWI and one just completed a programme in flying. In this job situation, she really would not be earning that much. A lot of financial responsibility would fall on me. It was certainly a bit difficult to come to grips."
However, he said his initial resistance was overcome when, "I realised that after a while her being in the office was becoming more and more difficult for her and she was in fact unhappy. She had become quite unhappy. Now, she is much happier and I feel a lot happier about having made the adjustment in our lives. Now we can deal with whatever arises. We have come to a place where it is not about making millions of dollars. It is about being able to contribute something."
Respect
Richard suspects that Carolyn will never go back to medicine full-time.
What will his wife achieve in 12 months, now that she has left her private practice to work full time for the JFJ for the
period? How will a paediatrician come to grips with handling legal matters on a full time basis?
Carolyn Gomes looks down introspectively as she comments. "This is a different way of working. Things are running over from one day to next. In the doctor's office it was not like this. I have lost the amount of time I used to spend with children. I love children, love working with them. I no longer have the opportunity of building good relationships with
their families, which was a large part of the work.
"The job of executive director involves a lot of new skills. I now have to write project, implement them."
Handling the stress, the negative emotions associated with job is made easier by her medical training, she states. You cannot function as a doctor if you cannot maintain a certain distance.
She says, "I am enjoying the work as executive director the writing. I love the feeling that I am involved in an activity to help people. Trying to push the envelope for justice, to empower the dis-empowered and to encourage them to assume their rightful place.
"Sometimes the burden is heavy, because you are doing something over and over again. If we continue at this rate with police shootings, we will exceed last year's figures. But, you have to keep reminding yourself that the outcome is not your business, what is your business is what is the next right thing you can do."
