At twelve Marissa seems older than her years. Her eyes appear to have lost the sparkle of adolescence that fill the faces of other children of her age and she responds to questions with the reluctance of a child discomfited by enquiring strangers. Marissa's young life bears the horrific scars of sexual abuse by a close family member and her loss of innocence shows in her quizzical expression.
Joshua House is a sanctuary for children, some as young as four, whose tender years have been blighted by the curses of abuse, neglect and abandonment and who now live as a family, bound together by misfortune and sheltered at a facility that seeks as best it can to restore to them some semblance of normalcy.
Officially, Joshua House offers a home to children between the ages of four and eleven. Several of its residents have simply grown up there and at sixteen or seventeen they have no other home.
Outside the cluttered room that serves as the administrator's office a four year-old refuses to be persuaded to join his siblings in some adolescent game. He lurks sheepishly in the shadow of the door seeking perhaps the attention for which he must compete. He has never known his parents.
Marissa's mental scars are shared by half a dozen other children at Joshua House most of whom share the pain of abuse or abandonment by the people whom they trusted most, their parents. Others are victims of homes shattered by poverty, domestic violence or else, have lost their patents, to the streets, prison or to an early grave.
Thrown together by their separate misfortunes the 60 children for whom Joshua House is home appear to have adjusted to their circumstances well. Appearances, however, can be deceptive. Children employ their innocence to conceal pain far more effectively than do adults. They are, however, lucky in the circumstances. The streets are filled with other children whom, like them were abused and abandoned and Clifford Accra, and his wife Gladys, a native of the Dominican Republic exude a warmth that make them ideal foster parents to their charges. They bring to their job the experience of having raised five children of their own, four of whom live with them at Joshua House as part of an extended family.
Gladys Accra is a pleasant and engaging woman whose English is laced with the lyrical undertones of her native Spanish tongue but whose disposition exudes the warmth and caring of a typical Guyanese matriarch. Joshua House, she says, must serve as more than lodgings for its charges. It must help the troubled children forget the pain of their past and, as far as possible, reshape their lives to a condition as near as possible to normalcy. To the children she is "auntie Gladys" and she is as adept at bestowing hugs as she is at admonishing wrongdoers. Perhaps her greatest accomplishment has been her obvious success in securing the trust of children who have good reason to be mistrustful of people.
Attending to the needs of abused and abandoned children can be a huge challenge. Interludes of normalcy can be punctuated by sharp mood swings and the Accras must constantly monitor their charges for problems that may require their intervention. They meet with the children every day to discuss their problems and to apply solutions as best they could. In the absence of professional social workers, child psychologists or any of the various other specialist support that such an institution requires the Accras have simply sought to mould the children into a family.
Joshua House cries out for greater public generosity. Apart from a government of Guyana annual grant of $100,000 which the facility receives through the Ministry of Human Services, its sustenance is entirely dependent on charitable contributions which are far from adequate to meet the needs of the charges. The children rely on the kindnesses of individuals and institutions bearing gifts of clothing, toys and rations. Cooked meals are provided by civic-minded groups and individuals based on schedules that commits the contributors to providing particular meals. Dinner on Mondays is the responsibility of the family of the internationally renowned Guyanese entertainer Eddy Grant. When meal slots are not filled by contributors the Accras must take responsibility for feeding the children. Cash donations to Joshua House go mostly to paying the utilities - electricity, telephone and water bills.
Upstairs, the dormitory is Spartan but neat and the children are expected to do their home chores. Busying themselves with making beds and washing dishes they appear, every inch, normal children, content with their circumstances. More children has given rise to the need for expansion. A facility built to house around 40 children now accommodates 60 and Clifford Accra is currently overseeing the extension of the premises, chiefly to accommodate a new dormitory for the boys. Funding, again, comes from charitable contributions.
The children, some from far-flung regions of Guyana, attend schools in Georgetown, the more academically promising ones benefiting from scholarships offered by some of the city-based private schools. And out of the tragic lives of Joshua House have come stories of hope and of determination to triumph over adversity; like the story of a seventeen year-old former resident who passed seven subjects at the CXC examination recently and that of 11-year-old Shauntelle, one of the private school scholarship awardees, brimming with optimism that her efforts at the recent Grade Six national examination will take her to Queen's College and eventually to becoming a doctor. The children of Joshua House, their circumstances notwithstanding, still dare to dream.
By mid-afternoon the children "troop" in from their various schools, stopping outside the cluttered office shared by the Accras to greet Uncle Clifford and Auntie Gladys. It is clearly a practiced ritual instilled by administrators who insist the the children's backgrounds and their circumstances ought not to rob them of a proper upbringing.
The Joshua House Children's Centre was established in 1977 by Barbara Burrowes, daughter of the well-known Guyanese artist E.R. Burrowes. Barbara had returned to Guyana from the United Kingdom seven years earlier to work as a missionary and the facility was originally established to serve as a home for the children of the missionaries while their parents traversed the length and breath of Guyana. In the course of their work, however, Barbara and her group rescued several destitute children who were placed at the facility. Finally, the missionaries having left, Joshua House was converted into a Home for destitute children.
Joshua House accepts children based on recommendations made by the social services, the police and concerned citizens. Some of the children resident at Joshua House were simply left there by parents who are either unable or unwilling to bring them up.
The Accra say that they will not allow the socialization of the children to be constrained by the tragedies that have touched their lives. They are encouraged to embrace the wider society, to claim it as their own. Those who have finished school are encouraged to pursue training in vocational skills which, hopefully, will lead to jobs.
When you ask the children of Joshua House whether they are happy in their home they nod, affirmatively, sheepishly, some wearing studied expressions of hope that somehow resemble a fervent hope that time and changed circumstances will one day transform their lives and put their pasts behind them.