Charente Carr: A Great Survivor Who is Teaching Others to Live a Full Life

Charente Carr is a survivor who has overcome difficult circumstances since she was a child to work in several Fortune 500 companies and is now on the verge of launching her own business – JCLV21. She has learned how to overcome ailments, sexual abuse, and harassment through love, research, development, and execution to find relief from the pain she felt inside and out. Charente has helped herself and many others with chronic illness, pain, sexual assault, financial issues, and verbal abuse to feel better about their lives and heal from trauma and those who might just be struggling with day-to-day life.   

Thanks to her mother, a powerful lady, and her courage and indomitable spirit, today, Charente is a Heart-Centered Project Manager, Business Coach, Relationship Manager, Leadership Coach, Analytics and Human Resources and Payroll expert all rolled into one. 

Traumatic Childhood

Charente’s childhood was very traumatic. She was plagued by various ailments and suffered the pangs of poverty, sexual abuse, and homelessness. “When I was an infant, I suddenly stopped breathing and had to be rushed to the hospital one day. Even as I was recovering, I was down with fever seizure when I was five years old,” Charente told WomELLE in an interview. “It was my father’s care and love that helped me survive.” 

Till the age of 5, Charente was fighting for her life as verbal surgeries plagued her tiny body. Doctors declared that she wouldn’t learn to read or write. However, her mother took good care of her to prevent that from happening. Her mother took her to school and taught her to read and write. Tragedy struck again at the age of seven when Charente was diagnosed with asthma, and doctors doubted whether she would ever be able to do any physical sports or exercise. However, a determined Charente proved her doctors wrong by becoming the shot-put champion in her school. 

Persisting Problems

In school, Charente faced another problem. Boys harassed her as she was developing physically faster than her female peers. Those boys started touching Charente, and she fought for herself by making constant reports to adults to end the menace. This led the touching to stop, albeit temporarily.  

When she was 14, Charente thought her problems had come to an end, and life was taking a turn for the better. She was admitted to a private high school in Orange, CA, on a partial scholarship for her academics. However, fate decided otherwise. It marked the beginning of another battle in her life. First, her mother fell terminally ill with a few years to live. Shortly afterward, her sisters and mother became homeless. Her mother could not afford the cost of keeping her in that school, and she was transferred to a public school in LA County. 

Recalling those days, Charente said, “Some people came forward to help us during this period. But that too proved to be traumatic. Our family was torn apart when we were rendered homeless. We went to live with a man who proved to be a sexual offender. Next, we moved with someone who was a militant.” 

By this time, Charente had already been hospitalized 17 times. After some hospitals refused to treat her, Children’s Hospital in Los Angles admitted her. “There, I was attended by as many as 12 doctors, and it felt like I was a subject of their experiment. The doctors said I needed a blood transfusion, but we had no money to pay the hospital bills. So, I wanted to go home,” she said. 

Journey as a Writer

There was a stage in her life when Charente wanted to take her own life. She did not want to be a burden to her mother or family. However, her family members and friends assured her that she was not alone and had nothing to worry about. They suggested that Charente start writing her feelings and thoughts; she did exactly that. First, she wrote poetry to express her feelings. Next were short stories to escape her current reality.  

She says she was diagnosed with a rare skin disease at the age of 15, and I had to find a way to keep going. Charente graduated high school on time and celebrated her success in the hospital. Now she had a choice to make; was she going to roll across the stage as it was too painful to walk or get the surgery that would save her life? She chose her life. “It was an uphill battle. I experienced hostile work environments, sexual assault, and overwhelming debt in my early adult years. But I found out that I could keep myself going by finding joy in the little things and not letting the fear of the future stop me from living in the present.” However, she started forgiving people for what they did to her and her family. This brought her joy. 

She has written several books for children and DIY subjects on topics that made her inquisitive. 

Career

Her mother taught her about research, development, and execution from an early age. All these attributes later helped her to take up jobs at various organizations. She started with teaching. Then she moved on to do many jobs, including retail, marketing, hospitality, shipping, customer service in the IT sector, and coding. She learned a lot of things during her career at different organizations, including a few Fortune 500 companies. Using all the skills, she learned at different companies, she also started working independently soon. She plans to launch her company, JCLV21. 

She is also a homeowner and is married to a wonderfully beautiful soul she loves unconditionally. Her husband supports her in all that she does. “I stopped working in 2000 when the Covid-19 pandemic broke out and started preparing myself for motherhood. My husband is my best friend and is also the pillar of my sustenance now.”  

Charente says she enjoys learning history and traveling around the world, encouraging individuals, and talking about the future of technology. She is an experienced, results-driven business professional with 7+ years of experience in marketing, project management, and business development. She aims to provide value to her customers by leveraging current trends to shape solutions and approaches.