Another tough blow - Hurricane damages home of ex-con struggling to find work

Before dawn last Friday, Raymond Brown found transportation heading for Kingston, determined to collect his 10-year-old son for a rare weekend together.

With no steady job or secure accommodation, he planned to sleep somewhere on the UWI Mona campus just to make the visit possible. Fortunately, he did not need to go that route but his struggles remain. Fourteen years since being released from prison, where he spent time for manslaughter, Brown says that moments like this remind him how difficult his reintegration has been. To make things worse, his small hut in Moneague, St Ann, was damaged during Hurricane Melissa. It's another blow for a man who has been trying to rebuild his life.

Though he has nine CXC subjects and training in bartending, food preparation and automotive technology, he says steady employment has been elusive.

"I've been through 10 different jobs because I can't settle," he explained. "I always pass the interview stage, and when them reach the background check, everything stop right there." He insists that his life since prison has been centred on discipline and purpose.

"When yuh learn yuh lesson a prison and yuh get a second chance, yuh guided by that," he said. "My purpose now is atonement... to use my testimony fi inspire anybody it can reach."

That desire to do better includes maintaining a relationship with his younger son. Brown admits that the distance, coupled with unstable living conditions, has made his efforts more difficult.

"I need to be in my son's life," he said. "But because my living condition nuh so ideal, me affi satisfy with whatever time me get."

It was that desperation for stability and a fresh start that pushed him to relocate to Moneague from St Catherine. He described arriving with little more than a machete and a piece of tarpaulin.

"Me go wid the intention fi find one cave or chop out a space," he said. "Mi go pan the hillside and build the hut."

On Friday, after making the long journey to collect his son, he planned to take him there despite the damage, so the youngster can understand the gravity of his current situation.

"Me tell him straight, this a the reality of your father life," he said. Even so, he spoke proudly about the boy's progress in school. His older son, now grown, is studying medicine in New York.

Starting over in Moneague was challenging as Brown said he often felt judged.

"People look down on me like me a escape prisoner, or like me mad," he recalled. "But me couldn't make that distract me. Me affi go inna work mode fi show dem who me is." Over time, he started volunteering, chopping bush and helping where he could, earning a small income from handyman work. A friend he describes as a good Samaritan helped him build the hut and offered support when things became overwhelming. But acceptance has been mixed.

"I've been fighting to represent my character," he said. "Some people still sceptical, some nah take no check at all... even church people. But me keep doing the work."

Despite delivering numerous resumes islandwide, Brown said potential employers cite "trust issues". His experience mirrors the wider struggle faced by many Jamaicans who leave incarceration with certifications and references but find closed doors long before they can prove themselves.

"It feel like me still inna prison," he said. "A sense of entrapment."

Although he continues to face setbacks, Brown believes Jamaica can benefit from the resilience of people who have gone through hardship and changed their lives.

"They need to cut down the stigma and discrimination," he said. "Create more opportunity fi people like we. Sometimes a we go through the hardest experience and still come out wid character and wah fi serve."

Despite unemployment, displacement, and the emotional weight of fatherhood challenges, Brown remains hopeful that change will come.

"Me affi keep going," he said. "If God put me back out here, it must be for something."