A mother's desperate plea - Family badly needs shelter
Published:Tuesday | March 6, 2018 | 12:00 AMCecelia Campbell Livingston/ Gleaner Writer
OLD HARBOUR, St Catherine:
A proper house is the main thing that Lisa Samuels of Bullet Tree, Old Harbour, needs to assist her in the struggle to make life better for her and her children.
However, she is not sitting idly by and has been rearing goats, burning "a likkle coal", doing domestic work - anything she can do to make life better for the five of seven children who she has to care for (two are now grown).
Currently, Samuels is living in a house that is rapidly falling apart. "When di rain fall, in here flood out. Is pure hole in it, and it bring in water pan wi," she related to The Gleaner.
At the time of the visit, she had pointed to a tarpaulin that has been placed under the zinc in the house - a makeshift way of trapping the water from the leaking roof. "Right now, water inna di tarpaulin. Wi haffi go tek time and bail it out," she said. Samuels' challenge is compounded by the fact that there is no proper toilet for them to use.
Although she 'juggles' to keep food on the table for the children, Samuels said it is not enough to get the job done. Sometimes her sister will give her "a money" when she has it, or the family will visit to enjoy a meal out of her pot.
CHILDREN MISSING SCHOOL
The children, who attend primary and high schools, sometimes have to miss classes as she does not have the money to send them out.
"Teacher tell me sey mi haffi go get some help dat them can come school every day now," she said, even as she makes the plea for assistance to keep them in school.
Samuels, who is diabetic and has high blood pressure, said that she would continue fighting to do what she could to help her children.
She said that her main need, more urgent than food and clothes, is for a good roof.
Samuels is reaching out to Food For The Poor to assist with the land she has leased and hopes that the organisation will consider her plight an urgent one.
"Mi know nuff people a look to dem, but mi need a house bad. It hard pon wi up yah suh!" she said.