In the present sit­u­a­tion where many young peo­ple are faced with de­pres­sion due to the COVID-19 Pan­dem­ic and loss of loved ones, 28-year-old Chris­tine Balchan of Long­denville, who re­cent­ly earned her law de­gree on­line, is urg­ing peo­ple “not to give up…the best is yet to come.”

Balchan, grew up on a farm fac­ing many chal­lenges to go to school from her home at De­pot Road.

“I stud­ied for my SEA ex­ams us­ing can­dles and flam­beau as we had no elec­tric­i­ty un­til I reached Form 2 and is present­ly liv­ing with­out a prop­er wa­ter sup­ply. Help­ing out in the gar­den and still com­plet­ing my home­work. Af­ter com­plet­ing sec­ondary school ed­u­ca­tion at Mir­a­cle Min­istries Pen­te­costal High School, I com­plet­ed my first de­gree at CTS Col­lege. While at­tend­ing this col­lege, I be­came a young farmer with my par­ents,” Balchan said.

She added that her par­ents mo­ti­vat­ed her and through the many sac­ri­fices en­sured that she had every­thing she need­ed, “Their love for me made me a bet­ter per­son every day. My broth­er al­so sup­port­ed me.”

While on the farm, her knowl­edge of farm­ing grew and she ob­served first hand the treat­ment met­ed out to farm­ers. This is how she said her love for law emerged.

“I want­ed to change the struc­ture for farm­ers. I want­ed to help make farm­ers recog­nis­able, just as a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter or a per­son in high po­si­tions in so­ci­ety. I be­lieve that we are all equal­ly im­por­tant. The on­ly dif­fer­ence is we dirty our hands and feet in the soil, we sweat dur­ing the day for the love of pro­vid­ing sub­sidised food for the coun­try.,” Balchan said.

“All jobs are equal­ly as im­por­tant. The treat­ment that is re­ceived in my vil­lage is ridicu­lous and I want­ed to make a change. Af­ter which I told my mom and dad and they sup­port­ed me in all my dreams. My dad was proud and would boast about me be­com­ing a lawyer to fight for the rights of a farmer,” she added.

But tragedy fur­ther struck for young Balchan, as her hero, her dad, Glen Balchan passed away sud­den­ly in May from a mas­sive heart at­tack. Balchan’s en­tire world came crum­bling down.

“My dad was my role mod­el. His hum­ble­ness and sac­ri­fices drove me to be­come suc­cess­ful so that I can make it bet­ter for him. I start­ed law school at the In­sti­tute of Law and Aca­d­e­m­ic Stud­ies. I got many sup­port from my lec­tur­ers and staff at both CTS Col­lege and the In­sti­tute of Law which I am for­ev­er grate­ful for. Every morn­ing I would wake up to join my fam­i­ly in the gar­den and chick­en farms and loved noth­ing bet­ter than to know one day I am go­ing to make sure I help T&T recog­nise the hard work my dad and oth­er farm­ers did to feed the peo­ple,” Balchan said.

Ear­li­er this year, Balchan’s vil­lage formed a farm­ers group which was spear­head­ed by coun­cil­lor Ryan Ram­per­sad. Balchan was elect­ed to be the Pres­i­dent of the group named De­pot Road Farm­ers As­so­ci­a­tion. 

“At that point, I was hes­i­tant to take up the po­si­tion as I had my fi­nal ex­ams, how­ev­er, my aim was to help farm­ers in any pos­si­ble way. So I took up the po­si­tion in which my hero, my dad was re­al­ly proud of. Af­ter some time, with the help of Mr Ram­per­sad and the mem­bers of the team, we bought oil sand for the road. One of the many projects that was com­plet­ed,” she said.

How­ev­er, due to the pan­dem­ic, every­thing was put on a hold, “Af­ter this, my lov­ing fa­ther got a mas­sive heart at­tack on May 10 and passed away. My life was put on hold. I stopped feel­ing any blood in my veins. I thought it was the end of every­thing for me. I pushed away every­thing. Re­la­tion­ships, school and farm­ing. I had ex­ams a few weeks af­ter, I was not pre­pared to write. Un­til my moth­er, who is still in mourn­ing, told me to do it for my dad.”

Balchan did her fi­nals, hav­ing to do two more mod­ules in which to com­plete, “I wrote them and to my sur­prise on Oc­to­ber 20 when I opened my email I passed and com­plet­ed my de­gree with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don. My dad must be the proud­est an­gel.”

Balchan’s next step is to con­tin­ue in her jour­ney to help the farm­ers of her vil­lage and the rest of the coun­try, “to en­cour­age young peo­ple like my­self to know that no mat­ter what comes your way that you can still ac­com­plish your dreams. The best is yet to come.”