RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Tragedy af­ter tragedy has be­fall­en the Singh fam­i­ly of Princes Town.

First, a land­slip tore down their mil­lion-dol­lar home.

Then their sole bread­win­ner Kim­c­hand Singh drowned in Moru­ga, leav­ing be­hind his wife Na­dia Singh and their four chil­dren–Sasha, Dar­i­an, Gaitri and Randy.

The court case against the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) in re­la­tion to the land­slip fell through and Na­dia was left with­out a cent to her name.

Fac­ing the daunt­ing chal­lenge of pro­vid­ing for her four chil­dren with no fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance, Na­dia, the re­silient moth­er, rolled up her sleeves and be­gan clean­ing oth­er peo­ple’s homes.

It was a job she took on with de­ter­mi­na­tion, dri­ven by the un­wa­ver­ing be­lief that ed­u­ca­tion was the life­line that could pull her fam­i­ly out of the depths of de­spair and break the cy­cle of hard­ship that had be­fall­en them.

But yet again, the fam­i­ly was again dealt a heart-wrench­ing blow when Randy passed for a school miles away, ren­der­ing it im­pos­si­ble to at­tend.

Strug­gling to cope with his fa­ther’s death, Na­dia said Randy’s grades at the Sec­ondary En­trance Ex­am­i­na­tions fell be­low ex­pec­ta­tions.

How­ev­er, rather than be­ing of­fered the sup­port and en­cour­age­ment he need­ed, the child was thrust in­to a school lo­cat­ed miles away from his home.

“It cost me $70 per day to send Randy to school but, since the term start­ed, he has been at home be­cause that is mon­ey I do not have,” Na­dia cried.

Ex­plain­ing the costs, Na­dia said her son has to take two taxis and one maxi to get to school.

She said from Lengua to Princes Town costs $10, from Princes Town to San Fer­nan­do costs $12 by maxi and from San Fer­nan­do to La Ro­main taxi dri­vers charge $13 be­cause the school is in an off-road. The same price is paid to go back home.

Na­dia said she had gone to the prin­ci­pals of Bar­rack­pore East Sec­ondary and Bar­rack­pore West Sec­ondary, beg­ging for a trans­fer but was turned down.

“I don’t know what to do again. They said to go to the school su­per­vi­sor in Port- of- Spain but I don’t even have mon­ey to go to Port-of-Spain,” she said.

The dis­traught moth­er said she had al­ready made the sac­ri­fice to buy a Bar­rack­pore East Sec­ondary uni­form for Randy, think­ing the trans­fer would have been easy to get.

How­ev­er, it was on­ly in the lat­ter part of Au­gust that she re­ceived news that a trans­fer was not pos­si­ble.

Na­dia said all of her chil­dren suf­fered trau­ma when they lost their home and their fa­ther.

“They all de­serve sup­port but it’s so hard for all of us. All we want is a chance to be hap­py again,” Na­dia said.

Randy al­so broke down in tears over his bro­ken dreams. He rem­i­nisced how he would spend time read­ing for his fa­ther.

“I want to be­come a po­lice of­fi­cer,” he said as tears rolled down his cheeks. How­ev­er, with­out a sec­ondary ed­u­ca­tion, Randy said his dreams were now lost. He said it was painful watch­ing every­one around him wear­ing uni­forms and go­ing to school.

“It is sad be­cause I see my friends go­ing to school and I can’t go,” Randy cried. He said every day he yearns for school but knows that his moth­er is try­ing her best.

To pass the time, Randy rears chick­ens and plants a back­yard gar­den.

He said most of his friends at­tend Bar­rack­pore East Sec­ondary School, which is ten min­utes away from his home.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said any­one need­ing trans­fers should con­tact their Ed­u­ca­tion Dis­trict Of­fice in their area.

She said there are school su­per­vi­sors to as­sist in mat­ters like these.