A grassroots woman thinks outside the box

Yvonne Greaves is a grassroots woman on a mission to help women like herself emerge from the hopelessness and despair that oftentimes characterize existence in the inner-city. At 47 years old Yvonne, who never felt that she had anything to offer, is now passionate about seeing women step out of the proverbial box and empower themselves. “I never saw myself doing things or wanting to do things but just work a free zone and come home,” she admitted. “But getting involved in the women’s movement and WROC (the Women’s Resource and Outreach Centre) I recognize that there are great things that I can do; be a leader, help other persons to be great leaders.”

Yvonne, who hails from the Palm Grove Court community off Spanish Town Road, believes that a major challenge among women in her area is low self esteem. “We don’t try to develop ourselves. As women we just live in the community, stay in the community, we don’t want to go out and search for a better way of life,” she opined. However in addition to their empowerment, Yvonne wants to see inner-city women “put aside challenges and think about what we can do for our community.”

Over the years, the unassuming community leader has practiced what she preached. About 10 years ago she and other like-minded women established a club known as Women Working for Progress which operates out of the Women’s Resource and Outreach Centre on Beechwood Avenue. As the name suggests, the club seeks to enable inner-city women to develop themselves through education and skills training workshops and exchanges with other women on parenting, listening and developing other basic social skills. Etiquette was also quite important for Yvonne. “I never know how to use knife and fork and stuff like that but I have learned, because as a leader when you are invited to different places you want to use your knife and fork,” she declared.

Yvonne’s most recent project is learning to become a Community Facilitator which involves equipping women in her community to make a contribution by sitting on the boards of various entities such as schools and churches. The project forms part of the UNDEF Strengthening Women’s Leadership in Jamaica programme being implemented by WROC, in which 10 (inner-city) community leaders, including Yvonne, are being trained to encourage and link with other women to address their concerns. To facilitate this effort, Yvonne hosts several meetings in her Palm Grove community. “I have had three meetings already with women in my scheme,” she revealed.

In addition Yvonne through her project is progressively responding to some of the other needs in her community. She is currently working with her small group and WROC to bring the Registrar General’s Department (RGD) into her community so that children can more readily receive their birth certificates and be able to go to school.  She explains that “as a  inner-city person I know that sometimes it is hard to just get up and go,” given the many challenges like not having a regular job and having children and family to look after. Sometimes you can’t even find the bus fare, she added. But Yvonne is far from hopeless and bringing the RGD into the community will provide a well needed service. 

Aside from her community activities, Yvonne is married and has a part time job at a factory. The ambitious go-getter also sows and sells runners, sheet sets, underpants and other garments in order to make ends meet. The youngest of her four daughters recently passed 9 CAPE subjects, with 6 distinctions and has just begun sixth form at Wolmer’s Girls School. Back-to-School expenses have proven especially challenging for Yvonne and her family at this time, yet she remains optimistic about the possibilities. “You can’t go through life smooth because life is like a bumpy road; sometimes yu meet on debris, sometimes yu have pothole, sometimes yu get the smooth part. So when the rough part come now yu just gear up yourself for that,” she shared with conviction. And while Yvonne is taking her journey one day at a time, she keeps a treasured hope in her heart: “I would love for my (youngest) daughter to become a lawyer…and be empowered and not put herself in a box.”