Bo­bie-lee Dixon

The Sin­gle Fa­thers As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (SFATT), is shin­ing the light on the good fa­thers in this coun­try.This NGO has been host­ing a se­ries of pro­grammes in re­cent days and to­mor­row, will stage the first ever Fa­ther's Day pa­rade. The pa­rade will be­gin at 8 am at the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo, Port-of-Spain and cul­mi­nate at the Grand Stand where there will be a show fea­tur­ing sev­er­al live acts.The or­gan­i­sa­tion's Face­book page said the events that took place over the last week were a fun way of high­light­ing the im­por­tance of fa­thers to their chil­dren, in both nu­clear and sin­gle par­ent homes.

SFATT ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Gareth Lal­la told the T&T Guardian in a tele­phone in­ter­view, the pa­rade which al­ready has over 1000 par­tic­i­pants, is not a march or a protest, rather a mas­sive gath­er­ing to pay pub­lic trib­ute to fa­thers across T&T. He said too of­ten fa­thers are viewed as ir­rel­e­vant and that must stop."The pa­rade is just one way the as­so­ci­a­tion will try to change the gen­er­al no­tion that fa­ther's are ir­rel­e­vant and just "bank ac­counts," said Lal­la.He said fa­thers are of­ten treat­ed with bias and dis­crim­i­na­tion when it comes to court mat­ters in­volv­ing cus­tody and do­mes­tic cas­es.

"They are al­so treat­ed un­rea­son­ably when in­ter­act­ing with any oth­er in­sti­tu­tions such as the hos­pi­tals and the po­lice ser­vice."When a re­port is made, the man is al­ready brand­ed guilty be­fore the whole sto­ry is told. Even when a man has a court or­der with ac­cess to a child, if he is be­ing de­nied that ac­cess, when he goes to the po­lice sta­tion to make a re­port, there is no jus­tice."This is not so in the re­verse. There have been times when fa­thers' doors have been bro­ken down and they were ar­rest­ed in the face of such," Lal­la said.He said the as­so­ci­a­tion will con­tin­ue with its open fo­rum meet­ings through­out the year and it is al­so part­ner­ing with oth­er NGOs that share the same in­ter­est.

Sto­ries from Sin­gle Fa­thers

Work­ing in the news­room of a news­pa­per like the T&T Guardian usu­al­ly means long and unso­cia­ble hours, which are not ide­al for sin­gle par­ents. Se­nior po­lit­i­cal re­porter Richard Lord and graph­ic de­sign­er Den­nis Taye Allen, are two men who have the un­en­vi­able task of bal­anc­ing their long work­ing hours with and tak­ing care of young sons.

I un­der­stand the chal­lenge

Lord's sons Alpheus, 12 and Adone, 10, have been with him since birth, af­ter he sep­a­rat­ed from their moth­er. Lord said al­though he en­joys fa­ther­hood, it is aw­ful­ly chal­leng­ing at times."Time man­age­ment is a se­ri­ous prob­lem for me be­cause my job is ex­treme­ly de­mand­ing–hav­ing to work late hours and ear­ly morn­ings. They are al­ways on the go like my­self," said Lord.He said some­times his sons have to at­tend late night as­sign­ments with him if there is no one avail­able to look af­ter them."We are up every­day from 5am in the morn­ing. On a nor­mal work day when it's not hec­tic, we get home at 8pm," said Lord who lives in Curepe.

Lord re­lat­ed the evening rou­tine as: get home, do home­work, make din­ner and pre­pare for the next day's school and work.Asked if he would do it all over again, Lord said be­ing a sin­gle fa­ther or moth­er is too chal­leng­ing."I came from a sin­gle par­ent fam­i­ly so I know how much stress is in­volved. It is be­cause of my up­bring­ing that I am able to take care of these kids like I do."For the rare bit of recre­ation, Lord en­sures his boys catch a movie or vis­it the mall.

They have my last name

Den­nis Allen be­came a sin­gle par­ent when he and his part­ner split up in 2007. His sons Taye Jr 13, and Iri­an 12, are their fa­ther's "eye­balls."They al­ready know what it is to work on a shift sys­tem, as they of­ten keep him com­pa­ny at the of­fice."My kids grew up in the of­fice. I have to thank my co-work­ers for be­ing so pa­tient and un­der­stand­ing," said Allen.He al­so prais­es his sons for be­ing pa­tient as well, be­cause they are of­ten forced to stay late hours in the of­fice with him."It's hard see­ing your kids in their school clothes go­ing home at mid­night be­cause that's the time you fin­ish work."He said the pace has af­fect­ed his boys as they of­ten get an­gry and tend to bick­er a lot."There are a lot of sep­a­ra­tion anx­i­ety is­sues that they still have. Some­times they want to spend time with their moth­er, but that's re­al­ly on her call," Allen ex­plained.

The 42-year-old's per­son­al life has al­so been af­fect­ed be­ing a sin­gle fa­ther."I have no so­cial life. There is no "me" time, my so­cial life is with my boys. I mean now that they are a bit old­er, I don't have to wor­ry about find­ing them a sit­ter, but I still don't leave them un­su­per­vised for too long," he said.So would he do the sin­gle par­ent thing all over again if he had a choice? Allen says he if he did, pick­ing the same kids would be a "no-brain­er" be­cause they are his life, but rais­ing chil­dren alone is not an ide­al sit­u­a­tion."I would look for a more sta­ble en­vi­ron­ment to raise them in."Hey, I gave them their first names and my last name, so un­til they are able to do it all for them­selves, I will do it...ac­cept my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.".

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The Fa­ther's Day Pa­rade around the Queens Park Sa­van­nah will fea­ture the Pris­ons March­ing Band, USC March­ing Band, Port-of-Spain Pathfind­er March­ing Band, Po­lice Acad­e­my, Pris­ons Ser­vices, Fire Ser­vices, Po­lice Mount­ed Branch, Po­lice Youth Club, Scouts, SFATT mem­bers, Mo­tor­cy­cle club and car­toon char­ac­ters.For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion con­tact: Gareth Lal­la 716-0405/399-3388, Darell Phillip 684-1704 or vis­it www.sfatt.org