Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

The moth­er of a 16-year-old school boy made a tear­ful ap­peal to Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly yes­ter­day, “Please help my son. I don’t want him to die.”

The woman, who spoke anony­mous­ly out of fear for the teen’s safe­ty, said her son, a Form Three stu­dent at Ce­dros Sec­ondary, was thrown to the ground and beat­en by ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 stu­dents on the school com­pound on Wednes­day. She said it was the fourth at­tack on her son this year he has been bul­lied since he en­tered Form Two.

She said she was so ter­ri­fied for his safe­ty that she has de­cid­ed to keep him home and seek a trans­fer to an­oth­er school.

The woman said she re­port­ed Wednes­day’s in­ci­dent to the po­lice, but to her knowl­edge no ac­tion had been tak­en against the boys who at­tacked her son. She said a video cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia showed that a teacher present when the fight broke out, but he did not in­ter­vene.

“I need to get help for my son to move from this school be­cause I don’t know what may hap­pen to my son. I do not want to have to lose my son, so I am beg­ging please that if you can help my son, to re­move him from Ce­dros. I will like to ask the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion could you please as­sist a moth­er who I think you all is moth­ers too, that you can help me to re­move my son from Ce­dros be­cause my son is go­ing through too much, too much of fear,” she said

The moth­er of six said her son was treat­ed and dis­charged from the Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal. His back is still bruised and swollen.

She be­lieves he is be­ing “picked on” be­cause of his small stature and qui­et de­meanour and be­cause there is no one to de­fend him in school.

“I does keep ask­ing God to guide him and pro­tect him be­cause if you know what he go­ing through. No­body don’t know what my son is go­ing through,” she said.

The woman said when the bul­ly­ing first start­ed she made a com­plaint at the Min­istry’s San Fer­nan­do of­fice, but noth­ing was done.

She said, “I am not send­ing my child to die...I am leav­ing him home un­til this re­solved. I don’t want no­body to call me and tell me my son, he get stab or any­thing like that.”

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said, “When I am con­tact­ed by the me­dia on these is­sues, I am re­quired to ob­tain a re­port from the school’s ad­min­is­tra­tion.”

She said any ac­tion to be tak­en will be based on the find­ings of that re­port.