“Mark”, age four, was out playing with his friends in the Caribbean island he called home. He figured it was about time for dinner so he went to his house where his step father lived. Mark’s mother had previously gone to Canada for work, promising to return—she never did. When he got to the house, the door was locked. He was confused, but happy that he had more time to play with his friends.When he returned a second time, the door was still locked. This time he was starting to feel panicked. A neighbour saw him standing in front of his house and told him his step father had moved away that day—and the neighbour assumed Mark had gone with him. He was crushed.The four-year-old boy walked to his grandmother’s house, only to find out she wouldn’t take him in. He spent four or five days on the streets, alone. Someone finally took him to his aunt’s.“She was shocked her sister did this,” Mark says. His aunt was only about 19-years-old at the time and so she spoke to a Christian family she knew and they told her they would help her raise me.

“My aunt was very poor, but she did the best she could,” he says. “She taught me things, like love, discipline, respect and manners.”

Mark thought of his aunt as his mother, as his mother hadn’t played that role very well. Even before she abandoned her son and left to Canada, she had treated him with abject cruelty. “See this right here?” he asks, pointing to a four inch scar on his right cheek. “She did this to me at a young age.” His mother would also feed his sister and not him.

Fast forward to age 12 and Mark was thriving with his aunt. He’d learned to weld and, by his estimate, he was making a lot of money. “I was making more than teachers,” he beams with pride. He wanted to support his aunt, so he would put all of his money into jars and told her to help herself. “I told her, ‘just leave me some for the ice cream truck.’ I always wanted to work and I always wanted to help,” he says.

It was important to Mark’s aunt that his mother build some kind of relationship with him. His mother called about once a year, but Mark really didn’t feel like talking much to her. At age 16, Mark’s aunt decided to push the issue with her sister and told her she was flying Mark to Canada.

“The only time I ever saw Canada before was on TV and there was always snow.”

Mark arrived at Pearson International Airport, in Toronto, in November, wearing only a T-shirt.

“My mom picked me up at the airport. There was no hug. She said, ‘Oh. Come this way.’”

Mark wanted to return immediately to his aunt and the only home he knew. “I didn’t feel welcome.”

Mark’s mom’s boyfriend, “Louis” treated Mark with more respect than his mother could muster. He hired the youth for $9.50 an hour, doing work under the table for him. His first paycheque was $275 for a week. “I thought, ‘wow! I am rich! In my country I would have made $20 in a day.’”

Mark’s mother told him she needed him to help with money to pay for his landed status. He set off to earn her all she needed. In trying to get more work, he was told he needed a Social Insurance Number, so he set out to get one. In the process of doing so, he found out that there had been no paperwork on his behalf. His mother had been lying to him and gambling his money away.

“I felt used,” he says. He got angry. He went home and confronted his mother and she accused him of being rude.

“She kicked me out (in the cold) with a light sweater.” Mark’s sister let him back in and he went to sleep. Later he was awakened to someone stirring him from his sleep. His mother had called the police on him.

The police took him to Bathurst and Finch and dropped him off. He had nowhere to go, so he returned to the building his mother lived in, buzzed some random numbers and someone let him in—he hid in the elevator room.

The next day he got up and went to school. At lunch, he came home and the babysitter let him in to shower. Mark tried this for a couple of days but was eventually caught by his mother, who again called police. This time the police took him to Eva’s Place. “I didn’t even know what a shelter was.” Place became home and family for Mark from age 16 to age 18, where he attempted another reconciliation with his mother.

This attempt with his mother didn’t go any better than previous attempts. His mother wouldn’t allow him to eat any of her food. She would feed his sister and her boyfriend, but not him. She would shower the boyfriend with gifts and clothing. “His needs mattered.”

Mark got frustrated with his mother and asked her how she could put her boyfriend ahead of her own kids? “Her boyfriend even said that was how he felt, too.”

The final straw for Mark was when his mother told him she loved his sister more than him. “I was killing myself trying to please her and to help. She took advantage of me.”

Mark returned to Place. “It was better there.”

Mark’s sister was soon kicked out by his mother, too, and she was placed in Foster Care in a group home. “She told my sister that she was a whore and that we’d never make it in this country. My sister is now in college,” he says proudly.

One of Mark’s proudest achievements is that he never turned to alcohol and drugs. “I want to be a good example for my children,” he explains.

Mark went on to finish high school and got a job in a print shop. “I didn’t want to be on welfare. I just wanted to work.”

He is waiting on final word on his resident status and dreams of the future. “I always wanted to be an actor. I’ve done a few commercials.” Mark also plays drums, steel drums and keyboards. “I sing, too,” he says and adds that he is a break dancer. “I don’t want to do it for money or fame; I just want to do it because I love it.”

Mark says if he did make money and become famous he would use it to help other young people like him. “I want to tell youths in shelters that I made it—anything is possible.”