FIRST WORD
Breaking Cycles: Changing the
Narrative on Childhood Poverty By Kayla Young
A participant of ARK’s MER Programme
Baby Sophia began taking her first, clumsy steps shortly before her first birthday. Now, when she stumbles and falls, she is typically quick to soothe and quick to return to her mission to touch, taste and explore the world around her. By all means, she is a 'happy' baby who easily charms with her big smile and a head of soft, black curls. She is still, mostly, unaware of the instability around her. In her first year, she changed addresses three times – from a studio apartment, to a shared house, to a one-bedroom duplex. Her crib sits dismantled in the hallway, as it is too large to fit in the family bedroom. These days, she shares a bed with mum and dad, who have struggled to secure stable, full-time work during the Covid-19 crisis. This first year of Sophia’s life came as both a welcome and an immensely challenging experience for her parents. Between inconsistent construction work for dad and a smattering of housecleaning jobs for mum, Sophia’s family is stuck in survival mode – an increasingly common reality families face in the Cayman Islands since the border closed. While childhood poverty is not new to Cayman, its presence has been amplified by a tourism economy on hold and a lingering global crisis.
Even with a 16.6% drop in the non-Caymanian labour force in 2020, Caymanian unemployment reached 8.3% in the second half of the year, compared to 3.5% the year prior, according to the fall Labour Force Survey. While the long food pantry lines that made headlines early in the crisis have since faded from view, the suffering behind closed doors has not, explained Tara Nielsen, director of the local charity Acts of Random Kindness (ARK). Sophia and her parents are just three of thousands who have received emergency food and housing assistance from ARK in the past year. As of spring 2021, ARK director Tara Nielsen estimated that the privately funded charity was supporting around 3,300 individuals with food, housing and utilities. In comparison, government’s Needs Assessment Unit assisted an estimated 2,500 families with food and housing in all of 2020, according to official statistics. Many of the families, like Sophia’s, who were declined NAU assistance turn to ARK as a lifeline. “It's catastrophic,” Nielsen said. “If we opened the doors even more, there would be more people.” Despite the organisation’s best efforts, and those of other community workers, Nielsen fears the impact of the crisis could www.caymanparent.com
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