RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Over­whelmed by an out­pour­ing of sup­port from Good Samar­i­tans and as­sur­ances from the T&T Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion that her fam­i­ly could fi­nal­ly have elec­tric­i­ty, An­dri­ana Noor yes­ter­day ex­pressed heart­felt grat­i­tude to every­one who an­swered her call for help.

Her com­ments came af­ter se­nior of­fi­cials from T&TEC’s South­ern Dis­tri­b­u­tion Area vis­it­ed the fam­i­ly’s home at First Street, Dun­can Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do, and as­sured her that elec­tric­i­ty could be con­nect­ed with­in days of the house be­ing wired.

Dur­ing the vis­it, T&TEC of­fi­cials found that the fam­i­ly’s ply­wood and con­crete home had not yet been elec­tri­cal­ly wired. How­ev­er, the team as­sessed op­tions so the prop­er­ty can re­ceive an elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply.

T&TEC said a char­i­ta­ble or­gan­i­sa­tion in­tends to com­plete the wiring next week. Once the work is fin­ished and nec­es­sary ap­provals are ob­tained, T&TEC chair­man Anil Ka­mal said an elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply could be or­gan­ised with­in two to three days.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath, who per­son­al­ly in­ter­vened af­ter the Guardian Me­dia high­light­ed the fam­i­ly’s plight, al­so pledged as­sis­tance to the fam­i­ly.

On Wednes­day, Guardian Me­dia ex­clu­sive­ly high­light­ed the fam­i­ly’s strug­gle to raise three chil­dren with­out elec­tric­i­ty while re­ly­ing on so­lar lights and can­dles, de­spite their el­dest daugh­ter earn­ing a place at a pres­ti­gious first-choice sec­ondary school fol­low­ing the Sec­ondary En­trance Ex­am­i­na­tion (SEA).

The sto­ry prompt­ed an out­pour­ing of sup­port from char­i­ta­ble or­gan­i­sa­tions, Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and the pub­lic.

Among those of­fer­ing as­sis­tance are Za­hir Ali’s Glim­mer of Hope Foun­da­tion, the Ran­dom Kind­ness Crew Foun­da­tion and the Sure Foun­da­tion, along with in­di­vid­u­als who pledged fi­nan­cial and ma­te­r­i­al sup­port.

Shel­don Lal, of the Ran­dom Kind­ness Crew Foun­da­tion, said they had al­ready be­gun co­or­di­nat­ing the elec­tri­cal in­stal­la­tion.

“I’ve al­ready con­tact­ed our en­gi­neer to re­view and ap­prove the elec­tri­cal de­sign. Once it is ap­proved, our char­i­ty group will pro­vide all the ma­te­ri­als and wire the house free of charge,” Lal said.

He said the foun­da­tion com­pris­es T&TEC em­ploy­ees, li­censed elec­tri­cal con­trac­tors and vol­un­teers who do­nate time and ex­per­tise to help fam­i­lies in need.

Noor said sev­er­al well-wish­ers have al­so of­fered to pro­vide text­books and oth­er school sup­plies for her el­dest daugh­ter ahead of the new aca­d­e­m­ic year.

Al­though hope­ful that elec­tric­i­ty will soon flow in­to their home, the fam­i­ly still re­quires build­ing ma­te­ri­als to com­plete the con­crete struc­ture, along with ba­sic house­hold ap­pli­ances.

Noor’s fam­i­ly has faced re­peat­ed hard­ship. In 2010, her hus­band Joseph Mulchans­ingh sur­vived a near-fa­tal crash caused by a drunk dri­ver, los­ing one lung and two ribs dur­ing emer­gency surgery. In 2023, the fam­i­ly’s wood­en home was de­stroyed by fire. Since then, the cou­ple has re­built a mod­est con­crete house us­ing sav­ings from Noor’s do­mes­tic work.

De­spite those set­backs, the cou­ple said they have nev­er al­lowed their chil­dren’s ed­u­ca­tion to suf­fer. Their two younger chil­dren are al­so pro­gress­ing well aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly.

The fam­i­ly has cho­sen not to pub­licly iden­ti­fy their chil­dren or re­veal the name of the pres­ti­gious sec­ondary school their el­dest daugh­ter will at­tend be­cause they fear the chil­dren could be­come tar­gets of bul­ly­ing over their liv­ing con­di­tions.

Any­one wish­ing to as­sist the fam­i­ly can con­tact Noor at 376-3159 or make a do­na­tion to An­dri­ana Krys­tle Noor, First Cit­i­zens Bank, San Fer­nan­do Branch, Sav­ings Ac­count No 2239479.