GoodHeart |Yvonne Clarke is a true humanitarian at heart
A Jamaica Red Cross journey spanning over 50 years
Published:Saturday | January 25, 2025 | 4:16 AMAinsworth Morris/Staff Reporter
After dedicating more than 50 years to the Jamaica Red Cross, Director General Yvonne Clarke says she would do it all over again. Speaking with GoodHeart on Thursday evening, the selfless and devoted humanitarian reflected on a journey that took her to every parish in Jamaica and even across the globe, helping those in need and making a meaningful impact.
“I would start it all over again if I had to. There were rough days in Red Cross, because Red Cross [sometimes] didn’t have the resources to pay the staff. And I have worked at Red Cross without pay for an extended period. There are times when I would say, ‘Okay, let us pay the clerk’, and when I became a youth officer, I would say, ‘I can manage’ because I would bake cakes – wedding cakes – and I said I can manage from what I do [with my skill],” said Clarke, who received a Humanitarian Award in November from the Red Cross for her years of service to Jamaica.
“People will wonder why I stayed in a job all my life that is not as big salary like many other jobs, but, for me, it’s a way of life. If I would work all the while and still nuh get nuh pay, it wouldn’t bother me,” she added.
Clarke told GoodHeart that while working with the Red Cross over the past five decades, she learned to “walk with kings and walk with paupers”.
“I have travelled to all the continents. It (Red Cross) has taken me to some [parts] of the world that I would never have dreamt of going, and couldn’t afford if I were working in some other job,” she explained, adding, “When I went on the UNESCO Fellowship, as a youth member and went to some of the countries, they were so curious at that time about Jamaicans and [me] a little black girl who came into their space, and they were asking all kinds of things.”
If you were to ask Clarke about her most memorable moments in charity, she wouldn’t name just one, but two. The first was helping a woman from St Elizabeth obtain the necessary documents to travel to the United States to be by the bedside of her son, who was dying from AIDS – during its early years.
POWERFUL ORGANISATION
“The lady was 60-odd years old at the time. She said she had never been to Kingston [and] didn’t have a birth certificate, so there’s no way that she believed she could go anywhere. She couldn’t read [but] we took the information from her and came back to the office and said, ‘Okay, we’re going to work on this lady’; and I got on to RGD’s office, gave them the information and they found the birth certificate in about two days, they found it! [I was so] happy bout that. One step along the line, and we approached the embassy and we got the visa for her to travel, and that time Air Jamaica was still operating ... Within a week, we got the woman out of the country and to the bedside of her son in the United States ... So this is why I have to love mi Red Cross. It’s a powerful organisation.”
Clarke’s’ next most memorable experience with charity was helping a couple she met to tie the knot, a feat made possible with the support of others involved in the organisation.
Reflecting on her younger years, she recalled one of her scariest moments during the 1979 Newmarket floods. She described navigating boats through waters so high they covered light posts, as she and fellow Red Cross representatives worked to bring relief to those affected.
Her hope for 2025 and Red Cross is to have enough finances to support the programmes and the activities that need to be carried out especially for the School of Transformation.
“We are trying to develop our resource mobilisation programmes and all of that. We do get a tremendous amount of support during times of disasters, but we need to become financially strong. We have the programmes going [though] whether we have the money or not. One that we are seeking some support for right now is the School for Transformation where we work with the children who live on the streets or children who have fallen out of schools. What we do with those children is we try to get them back to a level where they can go back into the regular school system,” she said.