Be strong for your families - Lady Allen sends message of strength in COVID-19 battle, urges women to fight on

Lady Allen – wife of Jamaica’s Governor General Sir Patrick Allen – says Jamaican women are among the strongest and most resilient in the world, and despite many bearing the full brunt of the coronavirus pandemic as breadwinners for their families, she expressed confidence that they will not go under.

In an exclusive interview with The Sunday Gleaner last week at King’s House, Lady Allen said that her current circumstances have not removed her from very humble beginnings in rural Jamaica where she was raised.

Addressing Jamaican women, especially for Mother’s Day, she said the novel coronavirus, which causes the COVID-19 respiratory disease, has impacted women negatively and positively across the entire country, but especially where they are heads of households.

In too many instances, she said, holding families together has been left on the shoulders of women, requiring their mental strength to be at full throttle to combat COVID-19 family challenges.

“In the country where I grew up, it was much better then. Even if the living space was small, there was a yard where children could play. Today’s family relationships are different. Spaces are small and some apartments have no spaces for children to play and pose many challenges,” she lamented, adding that many children in inner cities also do not have any personal space.

Elegantly attired in a bright fuchsia straight dress with double-layer frills on the sleeves and accessorised with silver sandals, the mother and grandmother’s first reaction as she entered the drawing room at King’s House was to enquire about the health of the Sunday Gleaner crew. She disclosed that a cousin has been inflicted with the disease, but had survived.

GOOD FROM ‘EVIL’

But out of the current ‘evil’ has come good for her family as they now meet more frequently, albeit virtually.

“It has brought us closer together as on Friday evenings, everybody is now together on Zoom for family meetings and worship,” Lady Allen said, although acknowledging that there were also negative effects as well.

Noting that Jamaica has been impacted by several disasters over the years, she recalled the devastation caused by Hurricane Gilbert in September 1988, but said it was Hurricane Ivan which, in 2004, took the roof off the family house and destroyed household furnishings and personal belongings.

During the period without a roof, she recounted the graciousness of another Jamaican, who invited her and her granddaughter to use his fully furnished house nearby at no charge. It is this grace and characteristic kindness of Jamaicans to look out for each other that she is banking on to pull the nation through the current challenges.

“I learnt such a big lesson from that experience. It taught me that material things are just temporary and it has changed my outlook on everything. It’s people who are important,” she reflected. “Now, I have nothing that is so dear to me that I cannot lose. I mean, no one wants to lose family, friends and loved ones, but it is a reality of life.”

However, she said, nothing has been more impactful in the last 50 years than COVID-19.

“We are descendants from an army of strong people. We have a national heroine in Nanny and she would not take nonsense. She gathered her army and went into the hills and fought against slavery. We have an indomitable spirit that just keeps us going. We have that fighting spirit,” she noted.

“We are highly competitive. We are not going to take a back seat. We are always going. We have that inner strength that pulls us out of the darkest paths when we get there,” she stated.

BEATING THE ODDS

That strength was evidenced by many women from the poorer classes in Jamaica who, she said, were beating the odds to send their children to law and medical schools, teachers’ colleges and nursing training. Education, she said, has always been a vehicle of social mobility.

Lady Allen said that growing up, she was unaware that she was poor because food was always on the table, but it has taught her lifelong lessons about sharing and caring. She hopes Jamaicans will open their arms to their neighbours during this time.

Events at King’s House, the official residence of the governor general, the representative of the head of State, Queen Elizabeth, have been impacted by the pandemic, which has dealt a big blow to the Government’s coffers.

Charitable efforts to top the $17.5 million raised in 2019 to help tertiary students have been shelved this year. Annual awards and school visits have also been impacted negatively, Lady Allen said.

She offered messages of gratitude and steadfastness to individuals she called a “chain of front-line workers”, which include doctors, nurses, security personnel, street cleaners, pharmacists, manufacturers and entrepreneurs.

“Keep doing what you are doing four your country. God will heap blessings on you,” she said.

erica.virtue@gleanerjm.com