RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca­s­ookraj@guardian.co.tt

Six-year-old Amelia Mar­tin, who is autis­tic, has start­ed school for the very first time.

On Mon­day, Amelia took her first steps in­to the Claps Acad­e­my, weeks af­ter Guardian Me­dia high­light­ed her strug­gles.

Amelia, wear­ing her red uni­form, smil­ing and wav­ing at her moth­er Afiesha Young was de­light­ed to em­bark on the lat­est part of her jour­ney.

Shar­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of the mo­ment Amelia’s moth­er said, “We nev­er thought this day would come. She is fi­nal­ly in an en­vi­ron­ment where she can grow and learn.”

The fam­i­ly had faced set­backs af­ter their home was de­stroyed in No­vem­ber last year when a hog plum tree crashed in­to it. Since then the fam­i­ly has bro­ken up with Young mov­ing back in­to her par­ents’ home with Amelia. The girl’s fa­ther Chris Mar­tin, who was a track and field sprint­er, found it dif­fi­cult to re­build the fam­i­ly’s home and keep them to­geth­er.

Young’s dream of en­sur­ing her daugh­ter be­gan school in Jan­u­ary this year ap­peared to have been dashed.

But de­spite these chal­lenges, Young was de­ter­mined to find a way for Amelia to be­gin her ed­u­ca­tion.

“I would do any­thing for her. I want to see her get the best of life,” she said. Af­ter Guardian Me­dia high­light­ed their strug­gles, Good Samar­i­tans came to­geth­er to help pre­pare Amelia for school.

Say­ing her daugh­ter’s jour­ney had just be­gun, Afiesha thanked every­one who had as­sist­ed.

“Peo­ple dropped ham­pers and made fi­nan­cial do­na­tions. We re­al­ly ap­pre­ci­ate all that has been done.”

And even though Young has been forced to make ad­just­ments she said she felt re­ju­ve­nat­ed know­ing that so many peo­ple from across the coun­try had em­pathised with their plight and of­fered words of en­cour­age­ment.