Tyrone Reid, Enterprise Reporter

Left: Children from the community of New Haven, which is located off Washington Boulevard, St. Andrew, pose for our cameras.   Right: A resident walks along Emerson Avenue in New Haven, or rather, what is left of it.

New Haven is a great irony. It looks nothing like the place of refuge as its name suggests.

Judging by what is seen there, the craters, zinc fences and distress, one could find it hard to believe the stories of courage that abound in the community situated off Washington Boulevard and bordered by the lower middle-class community of Duhaney Park in St. Andrew.

Murky waters, roads that resemble battle sites, and overgrown vegeta-tion which clogs the drains and cause perpetual flooding characterise New Haven and fuel the depression that the residents have to grapple with every second of every minute.

The obvious needs do not, however, overshadow the promise that is embedded in this inner-city community. The acts of sacrifice represent a ray of hope for resilient residents.

Stories of hope

People tell marvellous stories of parents making sacrifices to ensure that their children escape the hardships they have been experiencing for years.

Marvia McAnuff, for example, a 46-year-old interior decorator, wants so much to go back to school. However, those dreams have been put on hold to ensure that all her children are afforded a decent education.

While reluctant to reveal the number of children she has, Ms. McAnuff has children attending some of Jamaica's prominent secondary institutions including Campion College, Immaculate Conception High School and Kingston College. In addition to that, two of her daughters are on scholarship at two Miami-based universities in the United States.

Ms. McAnuff, and her children's father, a mason by profession, are doing all they can to ensure that their children make it out of New Haven. "We are making all the sacrifices for our children because we don't want them to live the way we are," she said.

New shoes

Ms. McAnuff said one day, while heading to a bookstore in downtown Kingston to buy some textbooks for her children, she was stopped by a man selling shoes. Obviously moved by the condition of the ragged pair of shoes she was wearing, the compassionate vendor told Ms. McAnuff that he understood that things were rough so she could have a pair of shoes for free.

She told The Gleaner that she had money in her possession but she was not focused on her appearance, just on securing the books her children needed for the new school term.

She recalled that the vendor marvelled when she took out the money to pay for the much-needed pair of shoes.

Andrew Bell, 30, also a resident of New Haven, has two children aged two and five. He has been unemployed since 2003. However, he works odd jobs just to ensure that his young ones are able to attend school. He, however, lamented that there are days when he does not have the funds to send them to school.

"Mi not even know how we survive, ah just the grace of God bring we through," he said.

Mr. Bell's mother, Irene Francis, said that things are rough because unemployment is rife. However, the silver lining behind their dark cloud of hardships is that most of the people in the community are really trying. "It hard, but we are trying," the elderly woman said.

Wendy Lindo, an Immaculate Conception High School past student who has been living in the community for some 20 years, added that the community is not as violent as it was in years past. Ms. Lindo, 22, said she has left the security grill to her house unlocked and slept through the night like a baby.

"I would really not like people to think this is the worst part of the world."

She does not mind, however, that New Haven is deemed a ghetto. "Beautiful people come from the ghetto," Ms. Lindo said.

Left: These children stroll past the zinc fences that are commonplace in certain sections of the New Haven community.   Right: Irene Francis, who has lived in New Haven for some 30 years, talks about the hardships faced by the residents and the resilience they have shown. - photos by Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer