- Junior Dowie/Staff Photographer
Some of the boys in the Chambers Lane area.
RESIDENTS OF Chambers Lane in Spanish Town, St. Catherine, have been contending with a group of boys who they claimed are runaways seeking refuge.
Yesterday, some residents told The Sunday Gleaner that several boys who have run away from their homes from across Jamaica are now living on their own in the area.
Among the runaways, the residents claim, is 13-year-old Denair Adlam, who has been missing from his home in Isle district, Newport, Manchester, since February 13. The police was unable to confirm this information up to late yesterday.
Chambers Lane is an inner-city settlement with dirt pathways lined by rusting zinc fences. Disorganised wooden houses provide shelter for the small population comprising mainly women and children.
One vendor from the area who wished to remain unnamed said she held on to the 13-year-old youth on Friday afternoon after he was found stealing. However, he got away and she did not call the police.
"Up to yesterday (Friday) him tief a trolley roun here but we never know say a him until we see him picture in The Star," said the woman. "Me see him stealing things and him selling things, ah don't know who for," said the woman.
The ring of runaway teenage boys, who residents of Chambers Lane have come to accept as a natural part of the community landscape, have been taking refuge in the area for many years and have come from "all over", including rural parishes like Manchester and St. Mary.
"I see them here all the while; sometime me see them up the road and mi say to them say what oonu doing here. Sometimes you see them parents all about a walk a look fi them. I tell them to go to school but it is like we can't change them," said Barbara Campbell, a resident of Chambers Lane.
While the exact number of runaway youths could not be ascertained yesterday, The Sunday Gleaner spoke with three of them, who said they had no guardians. While a few had done some form of work before, many of them gather at the KFC restaurant in the area at nights begging alms to stay alive.
"Sometime we deh roun here and mostly play marbles and sometimes we deh pon the road ah hustle," said Stephen Johnson, 13, who has not been to school since January this year. A recent runaway, Johnson says he is almost a year into his new life away from home.
"Mi mother try look fi mi already and mi tell har say mi ago come home back. But me would like get into a school now," he said.
Fifteen-year-old Atashany Garvey has also been in Chambers Lane for a year now and he says, "A some lady mi stay with roun here."
"Mi mother dead from mi a seven and mi father nuh business with me," he claimed.
When contacted, the Spanish Town police said they had no knowledge of the situation with the Chambers Lane boys. However, the Newport police in Manchester received word yesterday that 13-year-old Adlam was somewhere in Spanish Town.
According to Adlam's mother, Wendy Bryan, the boy left home in St. Elizabeth for Mandeville dressed in a pair of black track pants, a short-sleeved floral shirt and a pair of black sneakers on February 13 and never returned home. If you see Denair, please call his mother at 965-7093 or the nearest police station.
