Miss Violet’s Bulletin — Bridgetown, Monday morning, written at the kitchen table with the second cup of tea.
To my dear readers, good morning. Miss Violet trusts you slept well. Miss Violet did not, entirely; the trade winds have been particularly insistent this past week, and one’s age does, eventually, register the difference between a constitutional breeze and a meteorological event. But we rise. We rise, we read the papers, and we attend to our duties as citizens.
There is much to attend to today. Pull up a chair.
ON THE VISIT OF HER EXCELLENCY DELCY RODRÍGUEZ
The Acting President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Her Excellency Delcy Rodríguez, arrived in Bridgetown on Sunday evening and is, this morning, in private bilateral conversations with Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley at Illaro Court. She has already met with President Jeffrey Bostic at the State residence.
Miss Violet wishes to make several observations.
The First: A visit of this calibre is not a small matter. The State of Barbados has welcomed a head of government with the full honours appropriate to the occasion, and we have done so with the dignity that has characterised our diplomatic conduct for sixty years now. Whatever views one holds on the broader Venezuelan political situation — and Miss Violet has views; Miss Violet is not without views — the fact remains that Caracas is our hemispheric neighbour, and Caracas-Bridgetown bilateral relations have been a fixture of our regional diplomatic life since 1969.
The Second: The Government of Barbados, under the Honourable Prime Minister, has long taken the position that dialogue is preferable to isolation, that regional cooperation is preferable to regional fragmentation, and that small states maintain their voice precisely by being present in conversations the larger states would prefer them not to attend. Miss Violet endorses this approach. Miss Violet has endorsed it for a long time, and will continue to do so until presented with a serious reason to do otherwise.
The Third: I am aware that some of our citizens — including some who write letters to the editor — view bilateral engagement with the present Venezuelan administration as objectionable on principle. Miss Violet acknowledges those views. Miss Violet would gently remind those readers that small states do not have the luxury of moral grandstanding when their economies depend on regional energy markets, when their tourism corridors depend on regional aviation links, and when their citizens depend on regional remittance flows. The Prime Minister is doing her job. Her job is to secure the interests of the Barbadian people. That is what she is doing today.
We shall see what comes of the conversations. We shall hold our judgement until we see it.
ON THE BUT REPORT, AND THE STATE OF OUR CHILDREN
I now turn to a matter that has occupied my thoughts since Friday evening, when I first saw the figure.
The Barbados Union of Teachers reports — and I will quote it slowly, so that the gravity of the figure is felt — that children and teenagers account for forty per cent of calls to the national mental health helpline.
I taught for thirty-eight years in this country, my readers. I taught at three different schools. I taught the children of children of children whom I had taught. I have walked the corridors of our secondary schools and primary schools at every hour of the school day, and I have seen our children laugh and quarrel and recite and sit examinations and grow into themselves.
I have never, in my entire career, contemplated a figure like forty per cent.
This is not — and I want my readers to hear this clearly — a statistic about teenage moodiness, about the ordinary anxieties of growing up, about the social media discontents that fashionable commentators discuss at dinner parties. This is a measurement of the proportion of our children who have, of their own initiative, picked up a telephone, dialled the national mental health helpline, and asked for help.
That is what they are doing. That is what we have come to.
I have several questions, which I am addressing to the relevant ministries through this column.
To the Ministry of Health and Wellness: what is the current staffing level of the helpline, and is it sufficient to meet a demand that is forty per cent juvenile? What is the average wait time? How many of these children are referred onward to clinical services, and how long does that referral take to materialise?
To the Ministry of Education: what is the protocol when a school counsellor identifies a child in mental health distress? What is the staffing ratio of school counsellors to students at our secondary schools? When was that ratio last reviewed?
To the Honourable Prime Minister, in her capacity as Minister of Finance: when the next supplementary appropriations are laid in Parliament, will children’s mental health receive a line that reflects the gravity of the BUT’s report?
I am not asking these questions rhetorically. I expect responses. I have a column. I will write again next week. I will write the week after that.
ON THE BANK HALL MATTER
A man has been remanded in the Bank Hall fire death case. The matter is now before the courts. Miss Violet observes only that the deceased’s family deserves both the dignity of due process and the timeliness of an actual conclusion. We have, in this country, a habit of allowing matters to linger. Our courts are professional. They are also under-resourced. The two facts are connected. The Honourable Attorney General has heard this from me before. He will hear it again.
ON THE GIVE TO GAIN SERIES
Barbados Today’s Give to Gain feature, profiling Barbadian women who lead and nurture and advocate and build community, is — Miss Violet says with the warmth of a woman who has been doing exactly that work for sixty-two years — welcome.
I will, however, register one note of concern.
When we describe the labour of women in our societies as a “superpower,” we run the risk of mythologising it in ways that make it harder to fund. The women who care for the sick, the women who teach the young, the women who organise the community function and the church bake sale and the children’s choir and the parish council — these women are working. That work has economic value. That work, in many cases, replaces or augments services that would otherwise be the responsibility of the State.
Calling it a superpower is poetic. It is also a way of saying we expect you to keep doing this for free.
Miss Violet would prefer that we honour these women by paying them, by funding the institutions through which they serve, by remunerating informal care, and by including caregiving in our national accounts.
The poetry is welcome. The line items would be more welcome.
ON THE MATTERS REGIONAL
Brief notes on our sister states, since the regional press is full of them this morning:
Trinidad and Tobago: the Auditor General has issued a qualified opinion on the 2025 Public Accounts, with billions in discrepancies. Miss Violet trusts that the matter will be debated in the T&T Parliament. Miss Violet trusts further that the lessons will be noted by all Caribbean Auditors General, including, on appropriate occasions, our own.
Jamaica: the Bank of Jamaica is conducting a search for its next Governor, with a four-month runway to August. Miss Violet wishes the search committee well. The job is not easy. The next Governor will inherit the consequences of a great deal of policy made elsewhere, and will be expected to defend it in front of a sceptical population. May they find a candidate of stature.
Trinidad’s Laventille ruling: the High Court has ordered compensation of more than four million Trinidad and Tobago dollars to the families of five men killed by police in 2018, with findings of unlawful conduct. Miss Violet observes that justice delayed is justice diluted, but it is not, contrary to the cliché, justice denied. Eight years is a long time. Compensation, however imperfect, is preferable to silence. The men are not coming back. The judgment is on the record. The State will pay.
A FINAL WORD
To my readers: Monday is a good day for a brisk walk. The weather will hold for the morning. Sea conditions are unfavourable for craft on the western coast — please do not test them. The sun is out. The trade winds are present. The tides are predictable, which, as the Bajan Bugle observed quite properly this morning, is more than can be said for many things in the news.
Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Take particular care of the children in your life — they are calling a helpline at a rate that should disturb us all.
Miss Violet will write again on Wednesday.
Yours in civic duty,
— Miss Violet Bridgetown, Barbados
Miss Violet’s Bulletin appears in The Tradewinds Brief. Same news, civic duty applied.