Gloria Calliste shows off the two awards she received for doing community service in Marabella. Photo: RISHI RAGNOONATH

By Yvonne Webb

Although her circumstances are not much better those she helps, Gloria Calliste is a woman who dedicated her life to helping others. An unemployed single mother, grand-mother and great-grand mother, Calliste received an Unsung Hero’s Award from the First Caribbean International Banking & Financial Corporation in October. She received another award from the San Fernando City Corporation in recognition of her selfless and unpaid community work. Her famous brother Leroy Calliste—known in cultural realms as Black Stalin—had made his mark in the field of calypso. But Calliste made her own mark in a less public forum.

Community Worker

Calliste is not a privileged good Samaritan; far from it. She lives in a rough area known as The Line in Marabella. The area is known for its share of drug addicts, criminals, school drop-outs, as well as many talented and successful citizens. However, Calliste’s doors are always open for the weary and she had prepared boxes of food for the impoverished, paid for with whatever money she gets from her own children.

“When Sunday comes, you would swear I have a restaurant. Is boxes upon boxes (of food) I prepare.

“Everybody pass, people who come from prison say, ‘Ma’am (her nick name) I come for lunch.’

“I feel proud and glad in my heart because God gave me a gift to help and I am helping,” she said.

It’s been 13 years since she recognised the task she undertook was “community work.” The habit is a trait Calliste adopted from her mother, whom she assisted as a child when older woman provided ‘bed and breakfast’ free of charge, (before the

who reaches out

term became popular), as well as lunch and dinner.

To continue her family tradition of giving back, Calliste started a number of community development schemes, including the Marabella Unemployment Welfare Community in 1996, undertaking projects like queen shows and Miss Pretty Summer Princess. Funds derived from these activities were used to help unfortunate children.

Calliste also formed the Never Lonely Club. The Club, which has 25 registered members between the ages of 60-91, was launched in June 2006. It is, as the name suggests, for people who are lonely. People who may have families, but lost their life partners. Members meet once a week at the Marabella Boys Anglican School on Sundays.

“We have girls come and do the old people’s nails, massage them. We have barbers to give the gentlemen hair cuts. We assist people who may need the services of a Justice of the Peace, those who may have to make a clinic visit.

“We take them out on field trips, provide entertainment. They talk, laugh about the old time days over sandwiches and drinks which people donate or we make ourselves from small donations collected at every meeting.

“People don’t want to leave when the evening ends,” Calliste explained.

She said her dream is to have a place where lonely people can stay when their loved ones go to work.

“We are really begging for a home. We don’t want people to leave an old mummy or grand parents at home alone and when they come back they have to cry,” she said and mentioned that several elderly people had died in house fires.

“I want a place where children, who have no where to go, can come by me. A place where a parent who has to go out can feel comfortable to drop off their children and return for them later.

”

Excited about outreach

Calliste said that her outreaches give her a lot of joy. She recalled how she assisted a seven-year-old child, the off-spring of addicts, to get a birth certificate and attend school for the first time. She told with excitement another anecdote of her experiences in community work: the story of a father of six who lost his Fyzabad home due to a fire.

“Someone sent him and his wife to me. He started to cry as he related his plight. I told him to give me one day.”

Calliste said she was scheduled to appear on Allison Hennesy programme on Channel 4 the next day.

“I spoke about his situation and by the time I reached home people were calling me saying I have a bed, pillows, mattress, clothes. He is building his house right now in Fyzabad,” she said with satisfaction.

Her face also lit up as she recalled her efforts in getting not one, but two wheel chairs for a disabled woman whose only daughter was in prison.

Touching the youth

Calliste said she wanted to establish a number of outreach programmes aimed at turning around the lives of youths in the community because she recognised the high incidence of crime in Marabella. To fulfill that goal, she had prepared a programme to teach children about etiquette and how to conduct themselves with proper decorum, while they learn spiritual and moral values. She said that eight-year-olds were already well versed about sex and boyfriend/girlfriend relations, so the programme’s objective was to occupy their minds with positives.

The programme would be structured in such a way that volunteers could teach participants how to eat with a knife and fork, do ballroom and other styles of dance, and engage in conflict resolution discussions.

Some academic components would also be included in the programme. Calliste said that she would like the programme to be held every Saturday at the Marabella Boy’s Anglican School.

A calypsonian and composer to a lesser degree than her famous brother, Calliste formed the Original Youth Brigade Roving Calypso Tent in 2002.

She intended to use the tent as a medium to have young children trade guns and weapons for a pen to write a song and a microphone to sing it.

Although the tent was held at various schools in the south, due to a lack of sponsorship it went bust.

Calliste decided to reopen the tent for Carnival 2008 and has already held auditions for a cast of 12 between the ages of five to 14. Her grand son Mickyle Calliste is the youngest member of the cast; he had already copped two junior monarch titles at age five

Another cast member is an orphan, who lost both parents to Aids.

“She has a powerful voice. We need someone to sponsor her,” Calliste said.

Inspired

She is also seeking sponsorship for a computer, a photocopy machine and a filing cabinet, to establish her own office.

“All our documents are stored in two boxes. Every time we have something, we have to pay $10 to get a computer print out, plus photocopying costs.”

Asked about her inspiration and drive, Calliste, who once suffered a stroke said, “When I go to sleep at nights, I do not sleep you know. Ideas just keep coming. God inspires me to do what I do,” said.

“I have three children, seven grandchildren and one great grandchild. When I die I don’t know what situation my children could fall into. I would like to have someone take them in, if they cannot care for themselves. This is my inspiration.”

Gloria Calliste can be contacted at: 658-5384,774-2252 or 365-3777.

“I want a place where

children, who have nowhere to go, can come by me. A place where a parent who has to go out can feel comfortable to drop off their children and return for them later.”