Venis’ love for St Joseph runs deep
In the Branchbury, St Joseph village where she was born, Venis Harris continues to be regarded as a prominent community figure, the little girl from the large household, on whom everyone called to ‘make a message’ (run an errand) or assist with a chore.
Today at age 76 and living in Joe’s River, the other St Joseph neighbourhood to which she later relocated, she continues to enjoy that profile as the go-to person, whether it be for assistance in her capacity as a Justice of the Peace, or as the flower arranger to whom many people turn in times of need for her services.
Industrious from her days at St Anne’s Primary School and at the former West St Joseph School (now Grantley Adams Memorial), Morris always found ways to use her God-given talents for tangible returns.
“I left school at 16 and I used to do domestic work. I worked half day in the Cattlewash area from 9 a.m. until 2 o’clock and then every evening I used to journey to the Girls’ Industrial Union (GIU) for classes.”
At the GIU young women were taught a range of craft which enabled them to hone the skills which they turned into financially beneficial enterprises.
Determined to widen her academic scope after leaving school, she also found the time to travel by bus from St Joseph to Whitepark Road in Bridgetown, to take English lessons. Little did she know at the time that she was laying the foundation for what was to become an undertaking that would impact the lives of women throughout Barbados, not just her St Joseph community.
It all began with a chance encounter with the late Dame Maizie Barker-Welch who was then canvassing her neighbourhood while she was contesting the St Joseph constituency seat in the House of Assembly.
“In her moving around visiting the homes and so on, she met up with me and we formed a bond and I walked with her from terrain to terrain, all over the constituency of St Joseph,” Harris said.
The victorious MP Barker-Welch selected Harris to work with her at her Church Village, Horse Hill constituency office.
“I used to be there from, I would say ten in the morning until five o’clock or something in the evening.
Barker-Welch, a well-known women’s advocate, formed the St Joseph Community Action Group with about 20 women and a lone man, operating from her constituency office. Harris was roped in as president.
She pointed out there were “a lot of unemployed mums in the area”, hence the organisation’s introduction of classes in skills such as knitting and crochet, “so that the ladies could come out and learn something to help themselves and make a dollar”.
Harris took advantage of the beginners’ flower arranging classes offered and went on to personally hone her skill at the craft with the aid of books on the subject, which she purchased.
For years she has been making a living from flower-arranging, her work on display at funerals, weddings and at other social events being testimony to her skill as a flower-arranger.
“I love my craft,” she said. “When I do things for funerals and people see my work, they always ask who did this? This often results in new clients.”
Harris’ position at the helm of the St Joseph Community Action Group, an affiliate of the National Organisation of Women, afforded her opportunities for travel and participation in overseas seminars and conferences, which allowed her to spread her wings even wider.
As a Justice of the Peace for about 30 years, the mother of six regards hers as a heavy responsibility to render service, even in those late hours of the night when people turn up at her house.
The desire to serve all goes back to her experience of growing up in a community where neighbours “looked out for one another”.
Despite the absence of street lights in her area of Branchbury when Harris was growing up, adults and children socialised outdoors together.
“People were very friendly and at night people like my grandmother and my mother would assemble at one place. The villagers would come out, while we would run around and play and they would talk and sing. The children wouldn’t go far, we would play that they could see.”
She also recalled the children in her household travelling long distances with their grandmother to help her carry the sweet potatoes she dug from a plantation field, their little heads being weighted down more and more with the heavy load as they struggled to walk back home.
“We were very poor. The house that we were living in, my aunt shared it and my mother shared it,” Harris said, relating how she fetched water from the nearby standpipe for domestic use; having no indoor plumbing and cooking on a wood fire outdoors, for which the children collected dry wood from Castle Grant gully.
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