RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A 12-year-old boy and his eight-year-old broth­er have lost their fa­ther, their home and al­most a year of school­ing. Now, their moth­er is plead­ing for help to se­cure a trans­fer so the boys can re­turn to the class­room and re­build their lives.

The broth­ers have been out of school since their fam­i­ly’s an­nex was de­stroyed by fire on No­vem­ber 25 last year, leav­ing their moth­er, Rose Marie Seenath, strug­gling to find sta­bil­i­ty while try­ing to se­cure a new home and ed­u­ca­tion for her chil­dren.

Their fa­ther, Dilip Deo, died on April 2, 2024.

Since the fire, Seenath and her chil­dren have moved be­tween rel­a­tives’ homes, first stay­ing with her great-aunt, Ri­ta Chanka, in Debe, be­fore mov­ing to her moth­er’s home in Princes Town, where they now per­ma­nent­ly live.

The fam­i­ly is now hop­ing that Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath and So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Van­dana Mo­hit will in­ter­vene to help the boys ob­tain a trans­fer from Su­chit Trace Hin­du School in Pe­nal to Iere Vil­lage Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School in Princes Town, which is clos­er to home.

How­ev­er, Seenath said de­spite sub­mit­ting the nec­es­sary doc­u­ments and fol­low­ing up with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, she is still wait­ing for ap­proval.

“When I went to the school, the prin­ci­pal gave me the form, say­ing to fol­low up for the trans­fer. So I fol­lowed the form and every­thing, and she sent it up to Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion but Sep­tem­ber is here and they still are not in school,” Seenath said.

She said she sub­se­quent­ly vis­it­ed the min­istry’s of­fice in San Fer­nan­do and was told to wait for ap­proval.

“Every time I’m call­ing, they’ll say you had to wait for ap­proval, so I’m just wait­ing,” she said.

For Seenath, the de­lay has be­come in­creas­ing­ly dis­tress­ing, as her chil­dren re­main at home while oth­er young­sters their age con­tin­ue with their ed­u­ca­tion.

“I’m not feel­ing too good about it be­cause they’re sup­posed to be in school,” she said.

The boys have tried to con­tin­ue learn­ing at home us­ing text­books and work­books, with their aunt help­ing them with read­ing and math­e­mat­ics.

But Ri­ta Chanka, who has been as­sist­ing the fam­i­ly, fears the pro­longed ab­sence from school could af­fect the chil­dren’s fu­ture. She is al­so hop­ing that they could get in­to a crick­et acad­e­my or a foot­ball club, as they love sports and this could help chan­nel their grief over their fa­ther’s sud­den demise. Deo, a mar­ket ven­dor, died from a heart at­tack.

“I feel that these chil­dren have not been in school since No­vem­ber. It’s not nice for these lit­tle chil­dren to be home so long be­cause, due to their prob­lem, they should be in school al­ready,” she said.

Chanka de­scribed the boys as bright and cre­ative, say­ing they spend time mak­ing things and re­pair­ing toys af­ter watch­ing videos on the phone.

She wor­ries that the longer they re­main out of school, the greater the risk of them be­com­ing idle or falling in with the wrong com­pa­ny.

“They might start idling. They might not want to do any­thing. They will get on the wrong side, then, fol­low the wrong com­pa­ny, go in the wrong di­rec­tion,” she said.

Mean­while, the 12-year-old said he is ea­ger to re­turn to the class­room and re­con­nect with his friends.

“I used to play with my friends. I miss them. I want to go and vis­it them so we can meet again and do all the things that we love to do in school,” he said.

He said he par­tic­u­lar­ly en­joyed math­e­mat­ics, sports and crick­et.

He al­so dreams of be­com­ing an elec­tri­cian.

“I would like for peo­ple to help me so I could get an ed­u­ca­tion so I could learn to be an elec­tri­cian,” he said.

His younger broth­er, who left school in Stan­dard One, said he al­so want­ed to get an ed­u­ca­tion so he can be­come a mar­ket ven­dor and agron­o­mist.

Chanka is ap­peal­ing to the Gov­ern­ment to ap­prove the trans­fer and as­sist the broth­ers with their ed­u­ca­tion and sport­ing in­ter­ests.

“If they can help in any way to get them in­to it, I would be glad, and I’ll try my best to sup­port them,” she said.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed the So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter, who said she will look in­to the mat­ter. The Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion has al­so been alert­ed.

Any­one wish­ing to as­sist the chil­dren with a sport­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty or a trade skill can con­tact Rose Marie Seenath at 377-1702 or Ri­ta Chanka at 272-5060.