Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Sab­ri­na Khadoo’s plea for help has turned in­to a fight to keep her fam­i­ly to­geth­er, with the moth­er of 12 now fear­ing her chil­dren could be tak­en from her be­cause of the fam­i­ly’s des­per­ate liv­ing con­di­tions.

Af­ter her plight was high­light­ed by Guardian Me­dia, the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty vis­it­ed Khadoo’s veg­etable stall, which she has con­vert­ed in­to a home for her­self and her chil­dren, along the Na­pari­ma-Ma­yaro Road, Princes Town.

Khadoo said she was told that the fam­i­ly’s liv­ing con­di­tions could re­sult in the chil­dren be­ing re­moved from her care.

“I am not leav­ing my kids to go in a home. I hope they don’t take them from me be­cause I do try. Since their fa­ther died, if they go in school, if they go any­where, they will see that my girls are A stu­dents. They don’t miss school. They al­ways clean; they al­ways fed. They ful­ly im­mu­nised. I do every­thing for them.”

While ac­knowl­edg­ing that the struc­ture is in­ad­e­quate, Khadoo said she has al­ways done her best to en­sure her chil­dren are prop­er­ly cared for.

Khadoo and her chil­dren, whose ages range from 18 to one, live in a one-room ply­wood struc­ture with­out run­ning wa­ter or elec­tric­i­ty.

Her hus­band was stabbed to death last Sep­tem­ber, and ear­li­er this year Khadoo be­gan re­ceiv­ing pub­lic as­sis­tance for the chil­dren.

How­ev­er, the de­te­ri­o­rat­ing con­di­tion of the fam­i­ly’s home, in­clud­ing land ero­sion to the rear of the struc­ture, cou­pled with the cost of school sup­plies, prompt­ed her to make a pub­lic ap­peal for help.

“They de­pend on me for every­thing. I wake up since 7 o’clock I’m out­side, half past 10 I’m now clos­ing. I make sure I meet my goal for the end of the day. If they have to get some­thing, I make sure I pro­vide it. I make sure, how small it is, I make sure I pro­vide it. I just don’t want them to take them. I mean, they’re not un­der­fed, they’re good. It’s just that we need some­where to stay that we can call home or some­where that we can stay that’s safer for them. And that’s why I asked for the help. Oth­er­wise, I wouldn’t have asked for help.”

Since the sto­ry was pub­lished, Khadoo said mem­bers of the pub­lic have do­nat­ed mon­ey, ham­pers, school sup­plies, shoes and oth­er items.

While some of the chil­dren are still in need of school uni­forms, she is con­fi­dent that they will be ready when the new school term opens.

“I will like to tell them God bless them a mil­lion times over be­cause they did bless my chil­dren and who­ev­er did it fi­nan­cial­ly it is go­ing to­ward them, every­thing is go­ing to­wards them and I thank you so much for it.”

She said a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from a State agency, whose iden­ti­ty and agency she could not re­call, vis­it­ed the prop­er­ty and took pho­tographs. A rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices (MPS­DFS) al­so vis­it­ed.

Khadoo said she has been oc­cu­py­ing the lo­ca­tion, which is State land, since 2014 and in 2022 she had ap­plied to the Land Set­tle­ment Agency for a starter home.

She said peo­ple who have of­fered to help are con­cerned about in­vest­ing in a struc­ture on State land with­out know­ing whether they would have per­mis­sion to build.

“If we build some­thing on it, they’re not sure if the gov­ern­ment will come and break it down. They want the gov­ern­ment to get in and say, to see if they can sur­vey the land and ei­ther give me the land to build on or per­mis­sion to build on it, so we can build some­thing good, a long-last­ing some­thing.”

Khadoo said she does not want to re­lo­cate, as her chil­dren at­tend schools in the sur­round­ing area and her veg­etable stall is her on­ly in­come.

In a What­sApp mes­sage, Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Van­dana Mo­hit con­firmed the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty’s in­volve­ment, say­ing its vis­it was one of the rec­om­men­da­tions made fol­low­ing an as­sess­ment by the min­istry’s Na­tion­al So­cial De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme team.

Mo­hit said the team had vis­it­ed the fam­i­ly and sub­mit­ted a re­port, and she had in­struct­ed that the rec­om­men­da­tions be pur­sued.

She al­so said Princes Town MP Aiy­na Ali is as­sist­ing the fam­i­ly.

Any­one will­ing to as­sist Khadoo can con­tact her at 278-1025.