<<< Young school children on the street corner of Nassau begging for money. Look what the country has descended to.
Nassau, Bahamas — Try turning onto the corner, which takes you off East Bay Street between the foot of the Paradise Island Bridge [old bridge] to the section of Mackey Street before approaching the stoplight on Shirley Street and they are there. Guests leaving the country must take that route every hour of the day and boy; they must be shocked to see how beggars have taken command of the side streets of News Providence.
Have you ever attempted to enter or exit the SuperValue Food Store in Cable Beach? My goodness before you enter you must pass through a mob of boys asking for donations to travel on some basketball trip. The scene is like bees swamp around honey and last Monday’s ordeal appeared to frighten.
Perhaps you have ventured near to some busy intersection here in the capital and someone handed you a sheet reading how some WUTLESS schoolteacher or principal will take the child on some trip at your expense. What are we telling our Children? What is The Bahamas coming to? We are fast becoming a nation of young desperate hustlers who have dropped all to go after the Mighty DOLLAR!
What kind a low down NASTY pah/mah/teacher or official in the education department would push these children to the point and train children to beg at such a tender age?
Could it be that taxes are so high these days – even on the Holy Bible – that we never dreamed street peddled would have invaded our once peaceful society the way they now engulf us? Turning our communities into the chaos, where from the baby to the breast all are handing out sheets asking for something.
We remember there was a time in the Bahamas when Bahamians refused to beg. And if they did, ONLY THE CLOSE NEIGHBOUR KNEW IT! However, today, the mah, pah and the child are all on the corner, taking whatever they might get to give to BTC.
The Bahamas is headed down the wrong direction people. We see upon the horizon evolving a SOCIETY OF GREEDY BEGGARS!
When there was no food home, we ate plum, juju, dilly and switcher was the soft drink. And when that wasn’t in season half a pound a sausage and Wonder Bread did the trick. And when that wasn’t available ‘tank’ God for tea boiled with ‘ROKER PURE’ under fire bubbling with the peeled orange skin or fever grass with cream. Bahamians had little and with 10 children in one house everyone shared! But to beg on the street to go to Miami was a NO-NO! Never! The thought never conceived into the mind.
Take a look at what we have today; people standing on the street corners – young children – begging to buy Tommy shirts and Jordan tennis. People asking for dollar on the corner and at the same time dialing a BTC ‘crack berry’ to see the number cause no more minutes left!
There was a time when we didn’t beg. We didn’t cuss for a raise because we were too happy to have a job. We didn’t go the way of the sluggards because we were People – who dreamed, believed, held onto faith in GOD and rode out many storms and recessions.
We didn’t complain for what was put before us because we were too happy to know someone had cooked food. There was a time when we shut down everything to give GOD thanks and boy back then when you look at it, we had more! We had so much more because we had learned to live simply, in order to simply live.
Someone must get the YOUNG BEGGARS OFF THE STREETS OF NEW PROVIDENCE and coach them to turn that same energy into hunger for an education, because there is no future in becoming a street beggar.
WE NEED CHANGE!!!
People in the middle of the road selling phonecard and peanuts near Montaqu East Bay Street. We can foresee someone soon making the bold decision to put a phonecard booth right in the middle of the road.
If they are asking for money it is possible that they want to experience something that might open doors to them but have no one to ask or their family can’t afford it. There has to be ways for people to be productive or they will limbo or be unproductive. They are not greedy beggars it’s because of other reasons. Be thankful that was not you.
Who are those people with the blue uniforms the mall and montague? Who is the Leader? Every time they are asked what do they do with the money they have a different story. They canot be genuine. Someone need to do a real investigation on them. They have been around the streets for years. POLICE? SOCIAL SERVICES?JOURNALIST SOMEONE PLEASE DO A PROPER INVESTIGATION. They are the most prominent and longtanding beggers of all. Is it criminal to deceive the public? They need to come clean or disappear.
Just yesterday on the way home, driving through Q.E. Sports Center I saw two men arguing. They were very loud which got my attention. As they got closer I realized they were arguing over ‘spots’ to sell their phone cards. The bahamian national was furiously cussing out the foreigner telling him he needed to be fair! It so happened that a person I was giving a ride to knew the bahamian and hailed him. Further they commented to me to hurry up and move cause the bahamian guy was known to have a temper. I thought to myself this how unneccesary violence and deaths occur. Something as simple as this, arguing over a ‘spot’ to push their phone cards! wow!
This begging/sponsoring thing has gone too far. Going to SuperValue West Bay and Prince Charles is just ridiculous. There is one lady, I swear it’s like it is her job to be there begging, because she “works” both of the stores. Recently she has had her kids with her that sometime “work a shift”. She has her son pull up his shirt to show a scar that she has been saying for years that he needs surgery for.
Then there’s the guy in the wheelchair at West Bay SuperValue. I overheard him tell a lady that he makes most of his money on Wednesday’s at Atlantis where he can make up to $2000-$3000. No BS!!!
I see the same guys asking for sponsor for basketball trips all the time. People are on the streets with signs asking for money. Women waiting in the cash machine rooms at banks in the night and weekends begging you before you withdraw money. I might just go postal the next time someone asks me for money.
I have no porblem helping someone, but damn, try to help yourself. Most of us are from humble beginings. Hard work didn’t kill my parents, granparents, and great-grandparents and it hasn’t killed me (at least not yet).
I agree with you Lynderella that beggars are Bahamians too, but what are we teaching our society, that it is ok to beg since the Politicians don’t give a damn? No, I don’t think that is the right approach. I vividly remember being sent home with sponsor sheets from school, my mum would fill out the sheet herself, attach the money and then send it back, or she would refuse to allow me to participate.
During that time, I thought of her as proud and mean, but now I have a greater appreciation for what she did then, when I see our your darlings out (even young ladies) with sponsor sheets asking for assistance for some school activity. We need to ban this type of soliciting, and I agree, we need to be our neighbour’s keeper, but until we get back there, we also need to teach our children to satisfy with what they have.
Name brand, I didn’t know of any until I was in grade 11 and got my first Nike as an incentive after doing well in school. I wouldn’t talk about Tommy and Polo, I bought them while studying my undergrad. I was use to wearing sweat water tennis when the other children was wearing the Jordans, but guess what, they were no better than me in running, and definitely no better than me in life! Those experiences taught me valuable lessons, they taught me “a penny saved, was a penny earned”, they taught me to appreciate what I had, and not to envy those that I considered more fortunate. It wasn’t that my parents didn’t have, as we went to the best private schools, but it was because they were molding us in to being with self dignity and appreciation.
Now we have children dressed down in Tommy and Polo from head to toe, but their book bags empty because their parents didn’t have money to buy books, what is that? We are now teaching our children that the appearance in more important than the brain.
Well like I tell the children that beg for sponsors, here is my number, call me with a copy of your report card and I will pay for your trip in its entirety if I see a 3.0 and above. When we start doing that, then we raise the standards….until then I een payin’ for no basketball trip!
Beggars are Bahamians too…and guess what if you search far enough you would find that they are probably related to you in some way. Bahamians have simply become a mean, selfish people who only care about ‘me, me, me!!! all for me baby!!!, we are no better than the politicians we elect. In the old days a child didn’t have to go out on the street to beg because his cause would be funded by kind people in his very neighborhood. Now he can’t even walk in his neighbors yard for fear of the pit bull dog or the cussin he would get. Bahamians wake up and stop complaining about every little thing…we need to deal with these greedy politicians who causin this mess!
I agree that students should not beg to pay for class/ field trips..but its not just the schools; the churches are doing it too! Almost every weekend there is a fundraiser on this lil rock to pay for some totally unnecessary trip abroad for a youth group! Then when they finish having cookouts, the children will be around with sponsor sheets for “spending money”…It makes me sooo angry! What message are they sending to the children? There are children in this country and around the world who cannot afford food and our churches begging for money for trips. I refuse! Where are their parents? Well I also know of an incident where it came back to bite the teachers…the children had sponsor sheets to “beg” for a field trip.. Months later they forged another sheet and begged money from unsuspecting tourists. They spent the money. I say “lesson well learned”! They were taught to beg and they put it to use!! And I bet the children were punished!!! Shame!
If schools have to give students sheets then they should abandon this idea and have other shemes to raise money for travel.Thjere is a young lady who hangs ouitside foodstore premises and just beg all day.She travels all around and am informed that a manager in a foodstore offered her a job but she refused it.I guess she gets more by begging.I ran into another young man on the sidewalk outside Supervalue on Robinson Rd and he wanted a dollar.I ignored him so he walked off and said that it did not make sense for me to save money bcos when I died I would leave it here.What a joker,he is begging but at the same time demanding my hard earned money.
FutureLeader, you brought up an excellent point, instead of harassing the tourist and people who are just trying to get by themselves. They need to assemble outside the HOA where those politicians is meet, they are the persons who are in the position to do something for them. If those beggars and the children with sponsor sheets were to go out there, that would help those politicians to see just how bad things are in the country.
What about them people that be by the mall at marathon in the uniform with the blue tins collecting donations? if they are out there EVERYDAY collecting donations how do they themselves make a living if their out on a daily asking for donations on someone elses behalf. ive always thought that they were and are scamming people. Non the less this is a clear sign to that the people here are suffering. they have now had no choice but to turn to pan handling and begging in order to survive. Ya think when papa and other politicians pass them they stop and dig in their pockets and give them anything?
I don’t know these people and their situations, but I feel there is far too many of them on our streets. How do they expect for you to have monies to give them, when there are so many of them? Just about every where you turn there is someone looking for a hangout and if you were too patronize every cause, you would just be working for them, because you wouldn’t have any monies to anything for yourself.
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