Fatherhood Is Fundamental:
Giving A Helping Hand To Young Dads

By DAVID HARRIS

Awakened by our flashbulbs, little Imani Davis lets out a piercing wail. For a child born three months premature, she has remarkably powerful lungs. "She takes after me with the attitude," said her father, Ronnie Davis of St. Albans.

Ronnie’s attitude – along with the rest of his life – has undergone a major adjustment thanks to the Jamaica Fathers Project. The mission of the project is to get absentee and underage fathers into the lives of their children and help them make their involvement more productive and worthwhile.

Operating out of a store front on the corner of 109th Avenue at Guy R. Brewer Boulevard, the program is funded by Forestdale Inc., a non-profit welfare agency in Forest Hills. Luci Duckson-Bramble, project director for Forestdale, said that most absentee or young fathers, often suffer from having had no positive male role model themselves.

Ronnie’s girlfriend, Dashee, was six months pregnant with twins when doctors told him that Imani’s heart rate had dropped and they would have to induce labor in order to save the child.

"I was upset and freaking out because I was thinking [the] worst case scenario," he said. "Some days I’d just sit and cry. And then I knew I’d rather be hit by a truck than see anything happen to my daughter. It’s funny how things come full circle. I started out as a player, hanging out, chasing honeys. I wasn’t expecting them to just flip the script. Now everything I do is for them first, and then my girl, and then me."

Though her heart and lungs are healing on their own, Ronnie and his girlfriend must still take Imani to Snyder Long Island Jewish Hospital twice a week for observation. And the surprises kept coming.

"Twelve dollars and sixty-nine cents for a can of Neo-sure," he sighs. "And they go through four a day. So I need to get a better job to make this really work. If you don’t at least have a GED people don’t want to see you."

For Ronnie and company, that’s where Jamaica Fathers comes in.

John Brooks, Ronnie’s caseworker at the project, has set Ronnie up on job interviews and is helping him prepare to get his GED. Brooks was a NYC police detective in the Bronx before he came to the project and said he was moved to involve himself because of the things he saw as a cop.

"You see the inequity of the treatment between the Jewish and Irish youth and black folks," Brooks said. "A lot of these young guys have records and disadvantageous educations, which is two strikes against them. If we don’t get involved, it looks like we don’t care. And if we don’t, who will? There are lot’s of programs like this for mothers but not many for fathers, none that I know of."

"They don’t know how to be good fathers because they have never seen a good one in action," Duckson-Bramble said. "Add that to the natural maturity [or immaturity] level of your average 16-year-old and this is what you get." Of the 100 fathers they currently serve, only six grew up with the presence of their own fathers.

"We’re looking for men who are willing to commit their time and resources to something truly worthwhile," she said. "This is a chance for men who have had some success to give something back, if not just for the young men then for the mothers."

Duckson-Bramble prides herself on the drawing power the program has with successful fathers who can help the younger dads figure out what the parenting thing is all about.

Kendrick Jobe of Jamaica is the real estate developer from whom Forestdale rents office space for the program. After a phone conversation year ago, Duckson-Bramble invited him to come by and see what they do. He joined the program as a mentor the next day. Jobe is a wealthy and successful businessman today, but when he arrived with his wife from Trinidad in 1963, he was working in a dry cleaners. When he found out his wife was pregnant with their first child he quit his job and bought a cab.

"That way I could be there for them whenever they needed me," Jobe said. "I could make their lunches and take them to school and pick them up. And they could call me whenever they needed me and could roll right up." Now he helps young men become fathers just like him.

Another father in the group, Gerard Campbell, is 22 years old and lives with his mother in South Ozone Park. He is a former high school football star who, despite decent grades, was kicked out for excessive fighting.

His relationship with his own father was less than a storybook. "There was no relationship." he said "He lived across the street from me, but we never even really spoke, Just ‘hi Dad’ and ‘bye Dad,’ like that."

Campbell is quick to differentiate that relationship with the one he shares with Brooks. "He’s my buddy – when I talk to him he’s like ‘you doin’ allright? Why do you sound so down?’ That’s why it’s cool to be here."

In 1970, less than eight million children were living in families where the father was absent. Today, the number of children living in fatherless homes exceeds 22 million. In fact, numbers from the National Fatherhood Initiative (of Maryland) indicate that four out of ten children will go to sleep in a home where their father does not live.

In addition to feeling the lack of male role models, these children will also face financial hardships. Figures from the Annie E. Casey Foundation show that as of 1998, only 42 percent of men, age 20 to 25, earned enough money to take care of a family of three, and less than 39 percent of teen fathers finish high school. And that is if the father takes part in supporting his family.

Carlton Aguido heads up the program’s outreach services, which provides mentors to help the young men conquer the obstacles standing between them and being everything they be can to their children.

" I have seen these guys do the impossible. They really have changed and its because the program works. We are doing something that needs to be done. Desperately."

Before adjourning in July, the Senate Finance Committee began hearings on a "Fathers Count" bill that was passed by the House last November. The plan would grant fatherhood programs $2 billion to promote marriage and parenting and provide job training and other services.

Several states are considering re-vamping child support collections to forgive past delinquencies if fathers pledge to pay in the future.

According to Duckson-Bramble, federal funds, when they arrive, will certainly help the situation, but won’t substitute for non-profits like hers that have been in action all along. She added that they are always in need of volunteers and sponsors. For more information, call Carlton Agudio at 297-4314.