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(posted 25-7-2024) A poem written by Jude Emmanuel Ukato. Jude shared this poem with the project team at the June 2024 workshop. It was incredibly powerful and he has given permission for it to be shared here.
(copyright Jude Emmanuel Ukato. 2024)
Gatekeepers or enablers?
OR
Gatekeepers and enablers?
Which one are we?
We will have to pick.
How many times have you heard, “there is no money” “there is no money” when a family is in crisis from the mouthpieces of government foot soldiers, otherwise known as social workers?
How many times?
But when the government spends on war, we become mute.
And send you to food banks.
Hard times.
People fleeing war-torn zones and violence are refugees and should not be treated as scums of the earth.
But social workers as the main assessors
exclude through their assessments
What on earth have we become?
We have become enablers and gatekeepers
Of endless hallways but never an open door within sight
Under the endless burden of economic and housing poverty
Social workers have become the unwilling gatekeepers of resources and enablers of tall dreams.
They open locked doors
But not fully please be kind
Helping to navigate those endless hallways of resources but never an open door in sight
As all are crumbling under their noses
They become the echoing voices of no, no, nos….
You hear murmurs – hush, silence in the halls of panels says the director
Social workers echoing the government’s slogan, “there is no money, there is no money, ANYWHERE.”
The dilemma of being a gatekeeper who stands tall like guardians deciding who gets what and who doesn’t
And at the same time hidden enablers of lighted paths.
As a gatekeepers and an enablers
We dance together in a graceful waltz, balancing power
While as enablers, we direct but not define, as gatekeepers we safeguard and sometimes constrain
But as the story goes in this complex world of complexities, and of gatekeepers and enablers…..
These languages are somewhat familiar.
The gates are either widely opened or firmly closed
This depends on what hat is on the head on the day
Gatekeepers or enablers what have we become?
I leave you with this….
“But unless you care (in the words of Dr. Seus) no one else will, no one else will.”