Dumped as infant, now top of the class! - Former janitor, pregnant thrice by 20, is poster girl for comebacks

“You can’t kill purpose.”

That’s the mantra of 38-year-old Jennifer Blake, a former bartender and janitor who recently graduated from the University of Technology (UTech) with honours, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in midwifery.

Blake, who hails from the rural northern Clarendon community of Pennants, is the poster child of a never-say-die narrative.

At the age of two, Blake’s mother, reportedly a prostitute, did not show up for her for more than two weeks. A friend of her mom’s did what she thought was best: ditch her.

“I was thrown in the garbage bin and left to die,” Blake told The Gleaner in an interview.

Blake, who was a single mother of three by the time she was 20, said she became despondent as she struggled daily to provide for herself and children.

She got pregnant at age 16 and graduated from high school with one subject. She got pregnant again when she was 18 and 20.

“By this time, everyone gave up on me; I even gave up on myself,” she said.

“I was living off a church’s expenses, but because purpose cannot die, God placed the right people in my life.”

One of those people was mentor Dionne Henry.

Henry told her prophetically 16 years ago that she would go to university.

“I laughed her to scorn,” she recalled.

Anger and self-hate

Blake believes that multiple instances of sexual molestation, from she was as young as three years old, sent her spiralling into anger and self-hate. She was so bitter over her ordeal that she wanted revenge.

“I walked around with so much hurt and pain ... . I wanted to kill all those who hurt me,” said Blake, disclosing that she could not summon the courage to report the matter to the police.

Hungry for change and committed to her children, Blake took a U-turn and transformed her life forever.

Blake found solace in her foster mother, Beverly Brown, an educator who influenced her career in medicine. She added that she also saw the field as an opportunity to offer support to teenage mothers.

She finally applied to university to make Brown proud.

Recalling her visit to the UTech campus to seek enrolment, Blake said she cried “like I had won the lottery”.

Even with that exciting prospect, trepidation lingered because she did not know how she would finance her tuition.

“I didn’t have a dime to my name, much less to find tuition fee,” Blake disclosed.

But she was able to lean on the strength of friend Neicy Townsend, who hatched a plan. Townsend and other friends sent their hard-earned cash to help her pull off the unthinkable.

She also tapped entrepreneurial skills to stay a float and sought additional funding from local entities. Blake revealed that she sold sweets on the university compound and expanded her nascent business.

“ ... I sold anything persons would want. I begged my way through university. I even went on Facebook at one point begging,” she said.

Amid the struggles, Blake said she was able to triumph over adversity through gutsy determination.

Blake advises persons who are down on their luck to keep their chin up. Discipline and devotion to God are touchstones of her comeback.

“Never give up on your dreams. Let naysayers be your motivation, as this will put them to shame and silence,” Blake said.