As a girl, she stole fruit so that she could eat. Homelessness and abuse plagued her childhood. She witnessed a murder that traumatized her. Yet…she persisted despite the odds.
Now 51, Lorraine Younger is a prominent insurance adviser in Kingston, Jamaica. She is a “top Executive Club insurance agent at Sagicor Life Jamaica, qualifier for the Million Dollar Round Table Club (the premier international association for top insurance advisers), and a Production club director, as well as president of the Agents’ Association,” according to jamaicaobserver.com.
Before she became a successful insurance adviser, she had to overcome homelessness and abuse, according to jamaicaobserver.com’s story. When she was three years old, her mother died. Her father worked on the Guantanamo Bay base in Cuba and placed Younger “in the care of friends and associates, which led to frequent upheavals as she moved across the island from one family to another,” the story said.
While on her way to school in Trench Town, Kingston, she witnessed a murder and was “completely trauamtised,” the story said. She “crawled under a bed where she remained hidden for days while her caregivers were searching for her,” according to the article. The caregivers found her on the fourth day of her disappearance, “shivering with fear, famished and filthy after not having showered, eaten or moved from her place of concealment.”
That’s when her father, worried about her safety, decided to move Younger to St. Ann, where she lived for the next eight years, according to the story. However, about a year after she moved, misfortune struck again: Her father stopped sending money, and she could attend school only two or three times a month.
Instead, the story said, she had to walk to a farm in Fern Gully, depending on a farmer’s wife to give her breakfast. She also picked fruits at the farm and had to eat them before returning to her caretakers’ home “to escape the wrath and fists of her caretakers.” Then she had to get the children ready for school and prepare breakfast for the family.
On one of the few days she attended school, she made a friend at Ocho Rios Primary School, who gave her books.
“I met Peter at school and he would bring me books. I remember getting Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books. I could barely read, though, so eventually I asked him for a dictionary,” she told jamaicaobserver.com.
He also shared homework with her when she could not attend school, allowing her to study on her own, according to the article. “Through her determination, she passed the Common Entrance Examination and received a Government scholarship to attend secondary school, ” jamaicaobserver.com said.
However, the mother of the family she lived with would not permit her to go to high school immediately, and Younger stayed home for about a year because she did not know the scholarship was free. One day, however, one of her primary school teachers told Younger’s caretaker that the scholarship covered all of the secondary school expenses. Younger finally attended high school, the story said.
Even though Younger excelled at school, life at home did not get better, and Younger became depressed. One day, overwhelmed by the hardship and circumstances of her life with her caretakers, she attempted suicide by walking into the sea to drown herself, according to the article. A fisherman saved her. Sometime later she ran away and became homeless in Kingston.
Despite being homeless, Younger persisted, finding a way to complete her schooling and better herself. Discover how Younger persevered to become a top insurance adviser, a loving wife and mother and a person who could forgive those who had abused her here. Discover how she persisted despite the odds.
