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Who Failed Pablo? Society Or Stella Maris?
posted (February 5, 2025)
But, looking a little deeper than those interactions on the street, we know that dealing with special needs children requires special care.

We spoke with the minister, a cab driver who often drops these children to school and a career educator for perspective on society and the special needs child. Here's what Jomarie Lanza gathered.

The Minister of Education says it's a devastating loss, an extra attention needs to be paid when dealing with special needs children. In an interview with him this afternoon, Fonseca spoke more on the impact of this tragedy.

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"You Know I think in any society, you know, one of our greatest duties with this responsibilities is to care for the most vulnerable citizens or most vulnerable citizens. And that's usually our children and the elderly, and in this case, with little Pablo. He was, of course, also apart from being a five year old child, he was also a special child, a child with special needs. A child with autism. So we have a special duty of care for those children. So it is an absolutely devastating loss."

"And I want to, you know, assure the Belizean people that, you know, we're conducting, as you said, thorough investigation into this matter, a full investigation. We're working along with the Belize Police department as well as investigating officers, detective MacLaughlin. And she joined me this morning at Stella Maris school, where I had an opportunity to meet with Pablo's mother, his grandmother and his aunt I will meet with his father and members of his fathers family later today but we had an opportunity to speak with them and respond as best as possible to all of their questions and concerns, and to express our full support for them, during this very, very, very difficult time."

While tracing the route that Pablo ran on Monday, we met former ex fireman and BDF soldier, Phillip Michel Martinez who says he has been running a taxi service for the past 20 years, catering specifically to special needs children. He says that a loss like should have never happened, if people were more aware of the needs and behaviors of autistic children.

Phillip Michael Martinez, Taxi man
"I used to go pick up kids from their house, take them there at the gate but when you get to the gate they tell you to take them inside. I take them to their class and I take them inside. When I go to pick them up back I do The same thing, go to their class and pick them up back and drop them off home, and I make sure someone receives them when I get to their house, I don't just let them go no. So I feel the pain, I feel the pain like that because I am telling you If I was out here at that time, I would have hold that little boy because I know him alone by himself does not business out here by himself so that's why I can't understand how people let him pass them. Once they have on that uniform you know something is wrong, why did people leave him alone? And the saddest part look, this is the saddest part my brother someone should have taken attention to that. I don't know how you all see it but I feel the pain of the parents because I know how I take kids, bring them back and deliver them and I feel so sad."

It appears that there may be a gap in the educational and societal system, one that has unfortunately cost us a life. Educator Dr Nelma Mortis gave us her analysis today as to how something like this could have happened.

Dr Nelma Mortis, Former Educator
"Belize has a way of running into moral panic when things happen. We often times speak that we are a very real society and we speak of things before it happens and then it happens and we run into moral panic and then we jump to the fact that we have to react and we have to correct the situation, when many of us would have seen the situation occurring before it happened. That is something we ought to be paying attention move it culturally."

"The whole concept of special needs, need a lot of resources so that is one big issue and when I say resources I am talking about human and otherwise because even the facilities even our schools were built long before we had any attention towards special needs and a child who may be in a wheel chair The school needs to facilitate even in the primary schools, the ordinary primary schools."

"Where are the protocols, what is the protocol another parent told me she has an autistic child and the uncle went for the child could not find the child and eventually they found him in another lot but the whole concept was the child somewhat got blamed for his special needs. These are some of the things where we are living in a litigious society and until one of us is being held accountable we will put more interest into what needs to be done."

"But we have to bring back that village, love it is missing. That child wandered so far and not even one of us could have subdued him for the moment and called for help."

"But these are the breakdowns in our society. We are failing our children. And its no blame game because I heard an interview where the person was deflecting the problem to the society, no it begins with you are responsible for that institution and you have to make sure that your institution has a safety module that will protect all children."

And hopefully the ministry will be able to establish a more efficient module inclusive of not just young school children, but those with special and diverse needs as well.

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"So I want to encourage the Belizean people to withhold judgment until we have a final report on this matter. Because Stella Maris school is an excellent institution that has served in needs of our children with special needs for, you know, literally dozens and dozens of decades, decades. From The 1950's or so it has a very proud track record of excellent service. And we have very good, dedicated people who work there. So I want to assure everyone that despite this very tragic, sad incident, that's Stella Maris will still continue, to provide that very good service to that community and to our country."

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