Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

He has a se­ri­ous fa­cial ex­pres­sion and stands at five feet eight inch­es. At first glance he can be eas­i­ly mis­tak­en as un­ap­proach­able. But for the 38 chil­dren at Christ Child Con­va­les­cent Home in Diego Mar­tin, Garai Pivitt is their "Big Dad­dy." It's a nick­name he is fond of and aims to live up to the char­ac­ter of ac­tor Adam San­dler who starred in the hit com­e­dy Big Dad­dy. Un­like many young men his age who nowa­days are fas­ci­nat­ed by fast cars, sport­ing hob­bies or even some il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties, Pivitt, 24, is stand­ing out among his peers and should be salut­ed for his stand. Pivitt is the care­tak­er of the 19 boys–ages one to 14–liv­ing at the home. Some­times he is al­so called up­on by Sr An­nun­ci­a­ta De Souza, who is in charge of the home, to en­sure they stay in line. De Souza told Sun­day Guardian that Pivitt was the first male care­tak­er at the home.

"The chil­dren sim­ply love him. He has a way with the chil­dren and we love hav­ing him around. We hope he is go­ing to stay on with us," a beam­ing De Souza quipped. The last of five boys, Pivitt, an On the Job Train­ing Pro­gramme re­cruit, said since his child­hood days he al­ways en­joyed car­ing for chil­dren. His day starts from 6 am Mon­day to Fri­day. He en­sures that all the chil­dren pray, show­er, have break­fast and then head off to school. "Since I was small I en­joyed work­ing with chil­dren. Ba­si­cal­ly, I think you can learn quite a few things from kids and the way they think. In­ter­act­ing with them on a dai­ly ba­sis you learn how they see things in their world and you are able to com­mu­ni­cate with them bet­ter," Pivitt said.

RIGHT: Busi­ness mag­nate Cheryl Mich­tavy, left, who do­nat­ed sev­er­al beds to the Christ Child Con­va­les­cent Home in Diego Mar­tin, looks on as Sr An­nun­ci­a­ta De Souza re­ceives a hug from a child liv­ing at the shel­ter.

Love what you do

Un­fazed by flak from those who may see his job not fit­ting in­to a "man's world," Pivitt said sev­er­al of his peers sup­port­ed his choice of work.

"Strange­ly, I was ex­pect­ed to get jeers from my friends but they sur­prised me and ac­tu­al­ly sup­port what I do. I want to en­cour­age some of my friends to get in­volved and help out too; it will cer­tain­ly de­ter them from oth­er temp­ta­tions. "This job is like run­ning a ba­sic house­hold; I see this job as be­ing home and look­ing af­ter my younger rel­a­tives. In fact, I have re­ceived many com­pli­ments for tak­ing up this job. When peo­ple come to the home and see a male fig­ure they are re­al­ly sur­prised. Nev­er in their wildest dreams would they be ex­pect­ing to see a man in a job like this, and fur­ther­more some­body my age."

Stiffer penal­ties need­ed

On hand when US-based busi­ness mag­nate Cheryl Mich­tavy vis­it­ed the home last week to treat the chil­dren, Pivitt was ap­plaud­ed for the great job he had been do­ing. Mich­tavy, who as­sists 23 aban­doned shel­ters in T&T, do­nat­ed 25 beds to the home and is al­so ex­pect­ed to as­sist with fur­nish­ings to en­sure the chil­dren are com­fort­able. She al­so brought smiles to the faces of chil­dren from the oth­er shel­ters who had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­cide what they want­ed to do for the Au­gust va­ca­tion...all cour­tesy her. "I am re­al­ly touched by what I have seen here. This home should be an ex­am­ple to many since it has a very high stan­dard and should be used as a mod­el."

"A young man has ded­i­cat­ed him­self to look af­ter these chil­dren, some­thing we do not of­ten see. "I am al­ways moved when­ev­er I vis­it these shel­ters be­cause these chil­dren all have a sto­ry to tell. I think Gov­ern­ment on the whole need to get stern­er with the of­fend­ers and en­sure the prop­er mea­sures are in place to pro­tect our chil­dren; they are our fu­ture," Mich­tavy said.