Incident At St. John's Native Friendship Centre

A couple of weeks ago, an alleged incident occurred at the St. John’s Native Friendship Centre.

Altina Norman is a parent and former resident of Nain.

She says on June 23rd, the Friendship Centre finished their After-school Program.

And the last day of school in St. John’s was June 24th.

Parents were informed by the Centre that they could still drop off their children as per the usual schedule of 1:00pm to 6:00pm on June 24th.

Because the After-school workers were still on site.

Norman says she dropped off her 8 and 9 year old boys to go to her bank at 4:00pm.

She says before the Friendship Centre closed its After-school Program, she gave her new cell phone number to them in case of emergency.

At approximately 5:10pm she decided to go back to pick up her sons and saw the usual children outside playing.

Norman says she was informed by one of the male workers that her boys were sent home for misbehaving.

The two boys were sent home on their own.

She says she quickly went home to see if they arrived home safely, but they were nowhere to be found.

According to Norman, there were four phone messages from the Friendship Centre informing her of the situation at 4:15pm.

She said she went back to the Centre and was informed by one of the female workers that they tried to contact her at least twenty times.

The workers said they had no records of her new cell phone number.

Norman says the female worker said once children leave the premises of their Friendship Centre, they are out of their care and are the responsibility of the parents.

She says after looking everywhere for her children, she was on the verge of calling the police to report her sons missing.

But thankfully, Norman found out that the mother of her son’s friends was looking after them.

She says she left a couple of messages at the Friendship Centre for someone to return her calls.

Unfortunately no one has attempted to reach her.

Normans adds all she wants is either an apology or reassurance that this type of incident will never happen again.

The St. John’s Native Friendship Centre is located on Water Street, one of the busiest streets in the city.