Through the Cracks
Release Date: April 2021
Director: Charlotte Windle Mikkelborg
Producer: Picture This Productions
Duration: 11 minutes
Script
It’s the things that we don’t choose that make
us who we are.
Like our country, our community
and our family.
And we take pride in these things.
I’ve lived in this community my whole life, and
most of these people have.
I guess you could say, I was born in the cracks
and then I fell through.
From
the age of six, I have to learn to cook from that age because my mother and my stepfather,
when they were at work, I’d have to because I’m the eldest so I have to be the
one to babysit, to cook to feed my sisters, get them ready to go to school and
all of that, pick them up from school and so forth.
We’d
have days when we’d have food and days when we’d have no food.
This is where I grew up. This is where life for
Demmino actually started…here. You know, so welcome,
welcome, welcome!’
Growing
up as a child in a (political) garrison area was not an easy task.
From
the age of 6-7, you started to get recruited into certain things.
And
the gang members they mould the youngsters from that tender age. So, they will
teach them certain things like how to walk, how to lock a gun, how to do
certain things, how to fire it, how to take out the magazine.
When
they start to shape them, by the time they reach 10-11-12, they start to give
them the gun now and tell them to…go and commit certain crimes…either kill
people, rob, whatever the case may be.
So,
when they start to shape them, by the time they reach 10-11-12 they start to
give them the gun now and …go commit crime…either kill, rob, whatever case may
be so.
Mother
never really wanted me to become a part of it.
She
always said she didn’t want me to end up as a criminal like my father.
She
always told me things like don’t come out of the yard, don’t mix with the wrong
company to try and keep us away from getting into trouble.
So,
it was not until I reached about 16, that I started getting into trouble with
other friends. Like normal teenagers do, we would go out and make mischief, you
know, do robberies and all of those things, you know.
It
had been like that for a couple of years, right up until I was about 18, when
one day I came home and out of the blue my mother just searched me and she
found two guns. She turned to me and
said ‘you know, I wish to god police would lock you up and send you to prison
because of the road I’d started to tread down.
And,
believe you me, not a month later it happened.
It was right, actually, exactly, here. So, this
is the spot where, at that time, the police came from this way, just like this
car, and they pulled up on me and pointed the gun at me and said, ‘Don’t move!’
and then the policeman started to search me and that’s when he found the
gun. He took it off of me and said,
‘what are you doing with this?’ and that’s when they arrested me.
It was from this point, that I began to think
about everything that I held dear. Because
when I got caught, I said my life’s done now.
That’s what I said here, right at this spot
here.
At
the age of 19, I got sentenced. They
sent me to the General Penitentiary…that’s in Kingston and that’s where I
started the 2 year sentence.
The first
thing I said to myself was what could I accomplish within two years. So I said I’m going to try and go to school, get some
subjects, and so I tried the prison school but the school didn’t work out as the
teachers weren’t available.
So I
said which area (could I study) and one of the teachers said music. So I said alright then I might as well learn music and
that’s when I started to learn how to play the guitar.
I sat
there and listened and tried to learn as quickly as possible and they were
fascinated about that because they said you’re the first student to come here
and learn so fast.
Within
four months, I’d learnt how to play the drums, to play the guitar and they still
said I learnt too fast so they started to let me teach.
If I’d never been arrested, probably I would
have been dead because, when I came out of prison, I realised that – out of the
15 of us who had been part of the gang – 13 of us had either passed away or
were behind bars doing serious time.
As
an ex convict, it’s pointless trying to get work.
I
have an aunty who’s linked to a church and the church called me to say they needed
a musician.
When
I was playing, I told the pastor I wanted to go back to school
I’d made up my mind that whether I had money or not, whether I had food or not, whether I had somewhere to live or not, I was going to complete school.
And
that’s when I came into contact with New Horizon.
‘It’s been a while sir!’
We
focus here on training young men from the Wynter’s Pen area and beyond…
We’re
talking about high violence, high crime areas, especially in this diaspora
area, in Wynter’s Pen, Spanish Town. We
are sitting right in a hot bed of one of the most murderous places in the
world.
So, it
is very often the case that these young men have experienced traumatic
situations. They’ve seen murders, they’ve seen very
violent things in their lifetimes. They are sometimes, many times, traumatised.
So,
it is not an easy thing to be able to diffuse all of those things just to get
to the heart of a young man.
Demmino came to us right out of prison, pretty much
days out of prison, one of the hardest prisons in Jamaica. So we helped him
with his meals and with his income and so on so that he could basically
survive. And I see his progress as being
exceptional.
Mr Barnett has played a very vital role in my life..why?..Because he taught me all the things that
my father never taught me and he always gives me good advice and encourages me
to do my best.
We’ve
trained just under 600 guys here at the facility over the years.
Most of these young men, the average profile of one of these guys, is that they are raised by a single mum, 95% of our young men don’t know their fathers.
Some
of us are really trying to make a better life.
Now,
I’m currently on location at a school where I get to interact with students on a
day-to-day basis …troubled students
who have problems with behavioural issues and so
forth.
It’s almost 2 years ago now that I got married
and I’ve got my first child.
Being
employed now in Jamaica is quite challenging when you only have one job because
even, for example, me and my wife, we probably make on average 106,000 Jamaican
(750 US) dollars a month but that’s basically still not enough to do many
things because the prices of food and the prices of stuff here are very high.
The other day I had to take Elijah to the
doctor and I had to spend almost 30,000 dollars and that was more than half of
my monthly salary.
We’ve been considering to start our own business so we
can come up with more ways to finance our needs.
I
believe that starting a business now would give my family a better opportunity
at life, a better chance at life.
My dream for my son is that I hope he doesn’t
fall through the cracks. I hope he
becomes something that he really wants to become and I hope he really becomes more
successful than I am, in every way shape and form.