RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

For five years Sha­nia Khan-Sood­een watched her chil­dren suf­fer.

They strug­gled through school bare­ly man­ag­ing to com­plete as­sign­ments us­ing can­dle­light as they had no ac­cess to elec­tric­i­ty; much less a com­put­er, print­er or in­ter­net.

But on Sat­ur­day, Khan-Sood­een wiped tears of joy off their faces when the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of RESS­COTT Lim­it­ed Graeme Jones pow­ered their home us­ing so­lar en­er­gy.

A two-kilo­watt pho­to­volta­ic sys­tem was in­stalled with a ca­pa­bil­i­ty of run­ning the lights, fans and tele­vi­sion off the grid.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Khan-Sood­een said her four el­der chil­dren aged sev­en to 14, were obe­di­ent and stu­dious but all of them faced set­backs be­cause of not hav­ing elec­tric­i­ty.

“Oth­er chil­dren would bul­ly them and laugh at them be­cause we didn’t have cur­rent,” Khan-Sood­een said.

The fam­i­ly lives at Lowkie Trace in Pe­nal on a hill­top over­look­ing la­goons and pas­tures but de­spite the beau­ty of their sur­round­ings, life was hard with­out elec­tri­cal pow­er.

Khan-Sood­een and her com­mon-law hus­band Asif Mo­hammed tried to pow­er the house us­ing a gen­er­a­tor. Sev­er­al old bat­tered gen­er­a­tors were stacked up next to the house.

“The gen­er­a­tor was al­ways break­ing down. We ap­plied to T&TEC for elec­tric­i­ty but we nev­er got any be­cause they said this is Petrotrin land,” Khan-Sood­een said.

She re­vealed that her fam­i­ly had been oc­cu­py­ing the land and pas­tures for over 40 years, yet T&TEC could not give a con­nec­tion as they had no re­cent rent re­ceipts.

“I re­mem­ber last year Di­vali when every­body had lights and deyas in their home, we were in dark­ness. Asif was out there in the mud, try­ing to fix the gen­er­a­tor,” Khan-Sood­een re­called.

The chil­dren spent a mis­er­able hol­i­day and Khan-Sood­een said she prayed that one day they would be able to af­ford ba­sic ameni­ties.

She said when Mo­hammed fi­nal­ly got the gen­er­a­tor to work, they would have to fork out $300 per week to buy diesel to pow­er it. Most times the gen­er­a­tor would break down be­fore the fu­el ran out.

She said their youngest, aged four, was born with an in­testi­nal de­fect and they used up most of their sav­ings get­ting him med­ical care.

“We went by so many peo­ple look­ing for help and even­tu­al­ly we de­cid­ed to see if we could get so­lar pow­er,” she re­vealed. The fam­i­ly then went to RESS­COTT Lim­it­ed- the So­lar Com­pa­ny- on Cipero Street to make en­quiries.

Jones, the founder of the com­pa­ny, a past pupil of Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, de­cid­ed to make a site vis­it and re­al­ized that the fam­i­ly was in des­per­ate need.

“I felt sor­ry for them when I saw their poor­ly func­tion­ing, high main­te­nance diesel gen­er­a­tor,” he said.

Even though it would cost over $40,000 to pow­er the house, Jones be­gan so­lic­it­ing as­sis­tance. Sev­er­al com­pa­nies rose to the chal­lenge. Plat­inum spon­sors South­ern Sales and Ser­vices Lim­it­ed, Imi­ti­az Ahamad con­tributed to the project, along with gold spon­sors Chakra En­ter­pris­es Lim­it­ed, Bud­get Mo­tors Lim­it­ed and SESL Lim­it­ed.

“We man­aged to in­stall a 2kw PV sys­tem ca­pa­ble of run­ning all ba­sic house­hold ameni­ties off the grid and it was amaz­ing to see how hap­py the chil­dren were now that they fi­nal­ly had light to do their projects and home­work,” Jones said.

As a treat, he took the chil­dren to a near­by par­lour where they were treat­ed to snacks and drinks.

Jones said giv­ing a help­ing hand to the fam­i­ly was mo­ti­vat­ing.

“Al­though we know of sev­er­al fam­i­lies who need help, we en­cour­age oth­er com­pa­nies to bring their cas­es for­ward to RESS­COTT Ltd or con­tribute to the cause,” he said.

Any­one in­ter­est­ed in con­tact­ing RESS­COTT can con­tact Op­er­a­tions Man­ag­er Shamir Khan at 366-2471 or 688- 9950.