KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

Kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Raquel An­drews-Morales has been a vol­un­teer with the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team for about a year and a half.

The Diego Mar­tin na­tive and moth­er of two learnt about the non-gov­ern­ment or­gan­i­sa­tion af­ter a fam­i­ly mem­ber went miss­ing.

“No fam­i­ly mem­ber wants to call the num­ber dur­ing a time like that,” she said. “I made a miss­ing per­sons re­port at the po­lice sta­tion and then called the Hunters Search and Res­cue num­ber.” Af­ter two days, the miss­ing fam­i­ly mem­ber was re­unit­ed with her and the rest of her fam­i­ly.

She re­called, “For those two days, a mem­ber of the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team was in the yard. We were re­ceiv­ing up­dates every step of the way.”

Led by Cap­tain Val­lence Ramb­harat, the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team was formed about three years ago. The vol­un­teers, most of whom are ex­pe­ri­enced in hunt­ing in forest­ed ar­eas, use their skills to help find miss­ing peo­ple. The team has con­duct­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly 500 search-and-res­cue op­er­a­tions, re­unit­ed many fam­i­lies, and even dis­cov­ered bod­ies in the process. It was the pas­sion and ded­i­ca­tion of the team mem­bers that in­spired An­drews-Morales to join.

“Af­ter the in­ci­dent with my miss­ing fam­i­ly mem­ber, I asked to join the team,” she said. “I was re­ferred to Cap­tain Val­lence Ramb­harat, af­ter which I had to go through a tri­al process.” For three months, An­drew-Morales, who had no pri­or ex­pe­ri­ence in hunt­ing, went out on mis­sions with the team be­fore be­com­ing a full mem­ber.

She joined six oth­er women and 25 men who form the group.

She said, “The up­com­ing team mem­bers go on cer­tain search­es. Once in­ter­est is shown and com­pli­ance with what the team re­quires, you then be­come a mem­ber af­ter a three-month pe­ri­od.”

For An­drews-Morales, vol­un­teer­ing is the least she can do to help with an is­sue that has be­come preva­lent in T&T. “There are var­i­ous rea­sons peo­ple go miss­ing; crime is a main fac­tor,” she said.

“There are a lot of med­ical con­di­tions like de­men­tia or Alzheimer’s that cause peo­ple to go miss­ing as well, al­so men­tal is­sues.”

Apart from the TTPS, the team part­ners with fam­i­ly mem­bers to as­cer­tain how to en­gage with the miss­ing per­son. “We’ve had in­stances where the same per­son goes miss­ing on more than one oc­ca­sion,” she said. “We tend not to turn down peo­ple; if your fam­i­ly mem­ber goes miss­ing 100 times, we will be there 100 times for you.”

Her hard­est mis­sion to date is that of mur­dered TT RideShare dri­ver Shakem Charles, who went miss­ing. Charles, 32, of In­di­an Walk, was last seen on Ju­ly 9 around 5 pm, when he left his girl­friend’s home at Man­a­ham­bre Road, Princes Town, in his white Yaris Cross. He was found dead on Ju­ly 13 in a bushy area off Sun­rees Branch Road, Pe­nal.

Po­lice said the find­ings of an au­top­sy per­formed at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre were that he died from mul­ti­ple gun­shot wounds, and in­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve rob­bery was the mo­tive be­hind his mur­der. The fa­ther of two worked for an au­dio-vi­su­al in­stal­la­tion com­pa­ny in Port-of-Spain.

Three days be­fore his dis­ap­pear­ance, he had reg­is­tered with TT RideShare to earn ex­tra mon­ey to pay for his ve­hi­cle, which he had bought three weeks ear­li­er. “Out of all the mis­sions I have been on, that was the hard­est for me,” she said. “We went in­to the for­est to look for him with his broth­er and co-work­ers, and all of them had him down as a re­spectable per­son.

“What made it dif­fi­cult for me was that he was on a plat­form where you earn an ex­tra dol­lar. When you go out there think­ing you are go­ing to make ends meet for your fam­i­ly, do­ing some­thing ex­tra, you are not sure to come back home. That has been very hard.”

About a month ago, An­drews-Morales al­so be­gan work­ing at St Jude’s Home for Girls. “I go and talk to the girls in there and make sure they do what they have to do. Es­pe­cial­ly at night, make sure they are in their hous­es,” she said. “A lot of peo­ple think these girls are very dis­re­spect­ful. They are a beau­ti­ful bunch of peo­ple. I don’t be­lieve in bash­ing young peo­ple. It’s just a sense of di­rec­tion some peo­ple need, and if their par­ents and guardians are not giv­ing them it, they will go out­side look­ing for it.” An­drews-Morales be­lieves there is a need for more en­gage­ment with the youth.

“When you talk street talk with them, you tend to get through with them faster,” she said.

“I love what I do at St Jude’s and with the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team. It’s a pas­sion that has al­ways been in me, and I love to out­pour.”