and thank you so very much for joining us for this edition of all angles I'm Dionne Jackson
and a very special welcome to our viewers on onespotmedia.com so we have a very special program
for you this evening we're going to be having a special investigative report by Giovanni Dennis
now he looks at the walker's place of safety fire that took place three years ago and what has
happened since then after that we're going to be talking to some operators of children's homes to
hear their issues their challenges i can imagine especially in the pandemic how are they doing and
in studio with me i have sylvester anderson who is acting chairman of the elsi beamond home for
girls we also have with us desmond whiteley who is president of the children's home association
as well as manager of the sunbeam home for boys chairperson of maxfield park children's home
empress golding will be joining us as well on zoom so we thank them all so much for being here but
first let's go to this special report by giovanni dennis shortly after midnight january 16 2018
firefighters are desperately trying to save two girls trapped inside this home they were
unsuccessful
a thick plume of sadness covered the island in the days and weeks after the official report
from the jamaica fire brigade concluded an electrical short circuit caused the fire
34 of the 36 children survived two died but more than 1100 days later how are the survivors the
child protection and family services agency is responsible for monitoring children in
residential child care facilities rosalie gage gray is ceo the 34 children as you might be aware
were reintegrated into other facilities and from all accounts are doing well we continue to support
psychosocial support but a source at one of the three homes where the children were placed
told us some are still troubled others were traumatized all over again by the august
2019 fire at the jamaica national children's home where they had been placed as painful as it may be
we must revisit 17 lindhurst crescent the place it all started investigators are still here at this
moment trying to piece together information to determine what could have started the deadly blaze
three years ago in the wee hours of january 16 2018 i stood in this position as firefighters were
seated just behind where i'm standing right now at the end of their cooling down operation right here
at what used to be the walker's place of safety at the time i'd heard about a heroic neighbor
who had helped rescue several of the youngers who were trapped inside the burning home at the time
however he didn't want to speak and didn't make himself available although i was inquiring about
his whereabouts tonight however he is speaking out for the first time he was still apprehensive
saying i was lucky i caught him at a good time god dipped my side and trust me kimani anderson
received a badge of honor for gallantry for rescuing some of the wards he had just gone to bed
the screams jolted him from his sleep barefoot he rushed to help when is it it
someone just run in kick off the door at the time here screaming in at the same room
um one minute at the door you have flames come true
because they have another room beside a hit so um the the flames now come towards the other room you
have a lot of small one can't even see in there to see how many children are in there however
run inside it's a tree local girl escort them outside
girls all right same time them start screaming they might have but well traumatized because
as we say the flame was coming over to that room the ceiling began caving in
the ceiling with a ketchup fire all right and you have local fire debris i drop in at the same road
one of the girls um let's see like fire in our head yeah but another one fired up on
our shoulder even though the mother scar you understand asthma say i'm gonna easily
run towards them aid try to get them out get them all to the front then start here screaming from
the same room he was desperate to get back inside but a hindrance it's because we'll
get the door open you know brie start getting the house the room and you know once somebody
started getting out of the room the fire has a start ignite all over the place so me you know
i try for go back inside of the room you understand person star hola empowerment no
one of the females and she apparently she kind of different she can't walk on the kepler
i understand and well if my did know if men didn't know says she didn't have a local disabledness
she was the first person without her in the assistance
to this day he's bothered sleepless night i understand sleep last night because
each time you say you know mega sleep is like the screaming and start here but voices are the local
girl can start here but you know but you know as time goes by you know gradually get all right
you know but not forgotten trust me you still live here see the fastest places
what's that like caught up just caught up on the field
feel earth he laments not receiving any counselling afterwards
his brother mark remembers the children as more than just neighbors there's not a day
that pass we don't walk past homes here where you have the kids outside playing
and miss grace would be like mark yeah i got a road noir the relationship did stall it between
all of us no disrespect you know um we're gonna pass them once a month in our evening so
he recalls the morning routine i'm already here the kids
early as the morning or for their midnights
you know it's 5 30. you don't hear them over there miss grace i said no come on come get me
something get avocados breakfast and i like that so the mafia get up on them first shot themselves
on the name of them devotion you know and the name of them food and further and up in the idea
i asked if he had ever participated during playtime playing with them you know little
ones who don't want me to lift them up because i'm much taller than them so lift them up and
put them on a swing you know uh they had two mango trees over here two of them still they
didn't know um you know so when that time come around when the tree ripe up i'd be the one most
of the time to climb the tree and it'd be like ma mark i wonder that'd be one day you know so
all of those stuff you know i miss it honestly you're talking this one right yes what is the
jewelry you know that's cm3 i have the east india and further to the side they'd have a
blocky cheer on what that merely beer which one was their favorite to pick for them this one one
you know because it shot so then pick up manga them neighbor i spoke with on the dreadful
morning after eric requested to be anonymous then but not this time you know i remember obviously
life has
he feels personally hurt he's a man and he's like i'll find some stuff harmony and
i'm normal like that i'm going to think some work for the woman work for everybody and like
they look repair furniture she called him he does it i'm gonna do it and so forth you know
that's calling on me and so forth so you kind of look away if you don't say
remember certain things i remember those things you know life last time i feel good could that be
minds or anybody else would eric kimani and mark want to erase the members of 2018 but not susan
gough the human rights advocate wants to keep the tragedy on the national agenda she made several
access to information requests in her search for the truth of what happened that night she
got some documents but still has many questions we don't know if their deaths were preventable
or not we don't know whether the systems that were responsible for them failed whether any particular
agencies of the state that had responsibility for their care failed we don't know whether
individuals who had responsibility for their care failed a review of the child care sector was done
by the education ministry that review is subsumed in this final report by the child protection and
family services agency we'll examine the report and subsequent actions momentarily but first as
the prime minister declared during a visit to the location the morning after when incidents
like these happen it triggers an administrative response which is to review what actually happened
from whether or not the building was appropriate from whether or not we
need to spend more resources to build better facilities to see whether there was negligence
so was there negligence which government agencies were involved and what role did
they play in all of this we continue to explore those issues when we come back in
all angles with this special report by giovanni dennis do stay with us