Excelsior Graduate Making an Honest Living by Helping People

The Statistical Institute of Belize has the unemployment rate at five percent, but we all know that jobs are hard to find. Harder to find are choice jobs with working hours that fit our own personal schedules. Today, News Five followed a youth who, although he knows what career path he wants, has created his own form of employment by helping people. Eaon Henry let us in on what he does, and took us to his home, where we sat down with his mom to talk about the child she raised from birth to the respectful young man who may have crossed your path if ever you have needed to catch a bus at the Belize City Bus Terminal. News Five’s Marion Ali reports.

Marion Ali, Reporting

Eaon Henry is a fixture at the Belize City Bus Terminal. The eighteen-year-old graduated from Excelsior High School in 2022 and, since then, has made the terminal his place of work, creating an opportunity for himself that a lot of youths his age would scoff at.

Eaon Henry

Eaon Henry, Self-employed

“I carry bags here on the bus for people. I like helping people.”

Helping people is something Eaon began at an early age. He charges ten dollars to carry your luggage pieces from the terminal entrance to the bus you’re traveling on. But for passengers age sixty and older, he does the honours for free. He also extends that courtesy to mothers with babies in their arms. Eaon’s mom, Shanela Sutherland revealed that he has been purposeful from a very young age.

Shanela Sutherland

Shanela Sutherland, Mother of Eaon Henry

“He just like to help people, like when he go on bike, he usually like stop and say, Do you want a man on bike? And the people will say, okay, and that is how he start off. That was from he was 12 years old.”

Shanela shared how the idea came about for Eaon to work for himself at the terminal.

Shanela Sutherland

“One day he came to me and his dad and said, How you guys think if I would go to the terminal and, you know, make my own e cash? So me and his father talk about it. We sit him down and talk about it. It was first decided. It wasn’t a bad idea, but just out of trouble. We never, um, tell him we’ll know because we know he don’t like sit down. He like work.”

Eric Henry

Eaon does far more than carry people’s luggage for them. He knows the time and route for each bus that leaves the terminal. Shanela says a little while after she and Eaon’s father, Police Sergeant Eric Henry agreed to allowing their son to go earn his keep, she had to go see for herself what he was up to. And what she saw impressed her.

Shanela Sutherland

“I said mek ah stop here and just say what Ian is up to. But I, the first time I did it, I never mek ih see me. And I was like, hmm, okay, this da how Eaon do his thing. And I see him make a whole pile of noise and hand movement, and look at the time, I see all of that and I’m like, hmm. I never make it see me the next time when I gone. I gone out with my son and I just stand up and watch and find him outside by the door. And I see him do his thing. I say, wait, wait, he even can talk Spanish. I didn’t even know he could talk Spanish like that.”

Marion Ali

“You speak Spanish.”

Eaon Henry

“Yes, I speak pocito Espanol. (Laughs)”

Marion Ali

“Explain to me, you set yoh own working hours.”

Eaon Henry

“Well, from 8 o’clock to 5:30, that’s my working hours. But if I do have extra, you know, customers, you may help us the extra hour, if anything. It’s like a little bit, a vendor is coming up to Dangriga. Well, I stay up short hours, you know, and help out people. I carry bags on the bus for them, and they like my service.”

But this jovial young man has a career goal.

Eaon Henry

“I aspire to be a custom officer. That is what I aspire to be. From a young age, I decided, you know what? I want to be a custom officer. I want to work with customs. Yes. Have you applied for a job there? Well, not as yet. When the time is right.”

Shanela says her son takes what he does seriously as if he has to.

Shanela Sutherland

“People wudda ask weh your son di do da terminal di work or how di do that and ih father is a sergeant of police, the brother is a police. I have a business in my shop that is front there but it is not open at the moment. But um, he is somebody with a lot of passion. And I never say you not be this. The father never say you not be this. Ih always she goh fi it. The parents give the okay and the terminal also, the management they give an okay.”

Aside from Eaon, Shanela is mother to four other children. She knows all too well the responsibilities in raising children to be respectful and respectable adults.

Shanela Sutherland

“Fi you want better fi your children, you always have to speak. You always have to push them for better in their life. You should neva stop as a parent.”

And to the youths who say work is hard to come by, Eaon says not so.

Eaon Henry

“Watch ya, work deh out ya. You could come and work for yourself. I make access for myself and I da wa youth. You don’t need to stay up and hustle and beg and stuff. You can make yourself access. You can go to someone and ask if they need anything from the shop, they can tip or what’s not. Do something positive with yoh life, youths.”

And for travelers who may have forgotten to pray today, he has this sobering reminder.

Eaon Henry

“Always love God, without God you are nothing. Put God fuss.”

Marion Ali for News Five.