The Nicole Clarke Story

In her own words, Nicole Clarke has been through “a tsunami” before finally reaching a point in her life where she feels she is finally settled. Well, almost.

Molested at eight years old, pregnant at 15 and ending up moving from place to place to get a roof over her head, that story might not be strange to several girls growing up in Jamaica and indeed in other parts of the world.

At that point, no one would have readily said that around two decades later they expected Clarke to turn her life around to become a university graduate and begin teaching young girls (and boys) close to the age at which she was abused.

But Clarke is tough. Who else would purposely get pregnant just so their mother would throw them out of the house, just to escape the hell she was facing at home?

Now, she comes forward to tell her story, hoping it will help others.

“I just want to tell my story so that other young ladies out there will see that despite whatever struggles and setbacks you might face, you should never give up,”she said, her voice sounding confident as she spoke with The Gleaner on the phone.

“I’m grateful,” she admitted, as the interview got under way.

Her story began while she was a student at Brown’s Town Primary and when she was around eight years old, living with her mother, a single parent.

“It seemed my mother hated me in my own house,” Clarke said.

Most days she would go to school without lunch money and was forced to seek assistance from teachers and, especially the principal, to eat lunch during the days.

“Not even a suck-suck or bag juice I could buy,” she recalled.

Then one day the unthinkable happened.

“I was molested by one of my mother’s friends at age eight years old,” Clarke revealed.

“But the man never got sentenced until I was about 12 years old,” she added. She was in grade six at Brown’s Town Primary at the time.

“After that, that’s when my mother got very mean to me because she didn’t want me to reject the man’s money, to prevent him from going to prison.

“All the frustration was being taken out on me and the abuse got too overbearing and so I decided that I’m going to get myself out of the situation and one way to get myself out of the situation is for me to actually have a baby. Pregnancy was my escape route. When I have a baby, she wouldn’t stop me from getting support from my child’s father, and actually moving out.”

HIGH-SCHOOL DROPOUT

She had moved on to Brown’s Town Comprehensive High by then and, at 13 years old, Nicole found life extremely difficult, balancing her schoolwork and the traumatic existence in a place that should have been home.

At the end of the first term in grade nine, she dropped out of school, pregnant. She eventually moved out of her mother’s house and had her baby. Things didn’t improve for her overnight as there was no permanent residence for her.

The relationship with the baby’s father didn’t last and Clarke found herself alone with a young child and no place to truly call home.

“I found myself living from house to house with other people, me and my baby,” she recounted.

Then fate intervened.

“One night I went to a party with a friend and I met this white man from England. We got married in less than five months. I met him on New Year’s Eve, he went back (to England) on New Year’s Day then he came back sometime in April and engaged me, then he came back and we got married on May 4, 2013.”

After the wedding, the man moved his new bride to a rented apartment in Ocho Rios and went back overseas.

Clarke lived at the house for nearly seven years during which she went to evening classes at Ocho Rios High as she sought to get some Caribbean Examinations Council subjects.

She got four subjects but, much to her chagrin, failed mathematics four times.

“I had four subjects. My dream job at the time was to work with Juici patties,” she said with a laugh. “I mean, I had subjects, even though I did not have mathematics.”

She would eventually be recommended to a teacher whose assistance helped her to eventually pass the elusive subject.

MODELLING CAREER

All this time, she wasn’t working. She was a stay-at-home mom with her English husband taking care of everything.

“It was during that time I decided I wanted to take on modelling because everywhere I go people would tell me ‘You’re fit to be a model, you look like a model’.”

She joined Pulse modelling agency and it was a good match.

“I didn’t know that when I did one fashion show everybody was going to keep on requesting me to do shows for them, over and over. So, when that happened I started to see the light of the modelling world, wanting to have more of it and it became very enjoyable for me.”

“On days when I went to Pulse, I stayed at a hotel in Kingston because I found it difficult to come back to Ocho Rios in the nights when training was over at 8:30-9 o’clock. So, I would travel with my maths book and biology book; when others would go to parties, I would stay in my room and study.”

But while doing the modelling and studying, she realised that younger models than her at the agency were involved in entrepreneurial endeavours like selling eyelashes, or hair, or bikinis, and making money on the side.

“So I asked myself, ‘Why am I sitting down in Ocho Rios just collecting money from my husband and these girls are actually doing something that keeps them occupied?’ Every day they were being proactive and so I decided I wanted to be something like them.”

CHOOSING TEACHING

But she wanted more than a side hustle. She started looking for a career outside of modelling. She eventually settled on teaching and, based on recommendations, chose The Mico University College. As fate would have it, she secured a sponsor who granted her a scholarship to the institution.

But if she enrolled in Mico she would have to move to Kingston. And she did. But at a price.

“When I started, it was a bit rough for me but I managed. My husband said like how I moved to Kingston, then it’s time for him to file for a divorce. I asked why and he said because I’m moving from Ocho Rios where he has jurisdiction over me, now I am in Kingston I am following too many influential persons and he does not like it.

“At that time, my heart was really broken because I was in Kingston where I didn’t have my friends anymore, I didn’t have family members as much and so I was sad for about a year or two until I made up my mind that this is what I really wanted. I told myself then that when I reached my goals, whosoever I’m left with, then those are the persons who were meant to be a part of my life.”

“In the first semester at school I wasn’t taking it that serious, I was still partying once or twice a week and failed two courses.

“So, I told myself, ‘You just start school and fail two courses, this cyaa work, this cannot work!’ So I decided to stop all the partying, stop the mimicking, stop the joking and that’s when I lost most of my friends; but I had to buckle down and go for my goal that I had set.

“Now here I am in 2024 as a fresh university graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in primary education.”

Clarke expressed gratitude for all the help and encouragement she got along the way.

“I’m grateful, to my sponsor, to my son, and to all the strangers that keep pushing me, and I want to thank Shaneka Collins, my college friend. We started out together and we ended together. In moments when I wanted to give up because some of the courses were hard, I’m not going to lie, but Shanika would stay up with me until 3 o’clock the next morning, saying ‘Nicole, we’re going to do this,’ and she would ensure that everything is done.”

Clarke is now a grade-four teacher at a primary school in St Ann.

“Sometimes the students’ behaviour fluctuates but there’s no disrespect in my class, no bad behaviour. They have given me the slowest grade to teach, it’s very hard but I am willing to put in the work to get them moving from point A to point B and that’s my next goal. And after this goal is achieved, I’ll be setting another one.”

Her message is, “A lot of parents sometimes close the door on their children for whatever reason, but instead of closing the door, I think that parents still need to give their children support with whatever it is. For example, having a child doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the end of the road for what you can achieve.

“And, especially to young ladies, whatever you want to accomplish in life you should go ahead and do it. Just do it! Don’t sit there and waste your life.”

editorial@gleanerjm.com