sto­ries by RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter years of hard­ship, mix­ing con­crete her­self to con­struct her own home, dis­abled youth ac­tivist Destar Dythe has opened her doors to trou­bled youth, shar­ing what lit­tle she has with those in need dur­ing the Yule­tide sea­son.

Her home at Pic­ton Street Ex­ten­sion in Di­a­mond Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do, is sit­u­at­ed in one of the poor­est ar­eas in the Oropouche East con­stituen­cy. Since her roof went up a year ago, Dythe has of­fered lodg­ing to sev­er­al peo­ple who had no place to go and could not af­ford rent.

Last week, chair of the Sir Arthur Lewis In­sti­tute of So­cial and Eco­nom­ic Stud­ies (SALIS­ES) Dis­abil­i­ty Stud­ies Re­search Clus­ter at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Dr Be­phy­er Parey, laud­ed Dythe for her con­tri­bu­tion as a com­mu­ni­ty work­er, ac­tivist, youth ad­vo­cate, so­cial de­vel­op­ment ad­vo­cate and youth of­fi­cer for the Di­a­mond Vil­lage Coun­cil. She was fea­tured in the SALIS­ES project as one of 28 dis­abled peo­ple who are pos­i­tive­ly con­tribut­ing to T&T.

Speak­ing ex­clu­sive­ly to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Dythe said in 1992, she was in­volved in a ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent which led to her los­ing full use of her right arm.

“Growth in the arm was stunt­ed and I can bare­ly use it. I can’t lift it. That’s why I learnt to use my left hand for every­thing. Over the years, rheuma­toid arthri­tis has de­vel­oped on my left arm,” she ex­plained, point­ing to her swollen thumb and a lump near her el­bow.

De­spite her dis­abil­i­ty, Dythe said she con­tin­ues to reach out to trou­bled youths to keep them away from a life of crime.

“I too was once a trou­bled youth, so I know what it feels like to be mis­un­der­stood and con­fused,” she added.

Dythe ex­plained that the ac­ci­dent robbed her of a chance to rep­re­sent T&T in sports at a na­tion­al lev­el.

“Be­fore the ac­ci­dent, I played foot­ball for Petrotrin and crick­et with the Trinidad women’s team. Af­ter­wards, I couldn’t play again,” she added.

Fol­low­ing her tu­mul­tuous teenage years when she dropped out of school, Dythe got preg­nant three times dur­ing her 20s and bore her sons—Gar­net Lal­la, Ju­dah Dythe and Mes­si­ah Maraj.

She moved to Di­a­mond, where she lived with her chil­dren in a ply­wood house mea­sur­ing ten by ten with no prop­er toi­let or run­ning wa­ter.

Dythe, who raised her sons sin­gle-hand­ed­ly, re­called how they of­ten had no food to eat. Her el­dest son at­tend­ed Shi­va Boys’ Hin­du Col­lege, where prin­ci­pal Dex­ter Sakal en­sured his ed­u­ca­tion­al needs were met.

“I would go out the road with a smile on my face and no­body would re­alise that we were hun­gry,” she re­called. Dythe sold fruits from her yard to make ends meet.

“I would make kuchela, red man­go, red plum, any­thing I could get to sell. I did not want my chil­dren to end up on drugs or in crime. I did what­ev­er I could do to earn a liveli­hood be­cause I knew one day they would all grow up and they will be help­ing me,” she said.

Fond­ly known as Boom­ba, Dythe said her com­mu­ni­ty is rid­dled with drugs and crime.

“We had sev­er­al mur­ders right here in this area. We have youths who are get­ting in­to the wrong crowd. Poor chil­dren with noth­ing to eat. They go astray and the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre right now is in sham­bles, there is lit­tle op­por­tu­ni­ty for sports,” she said.

De­ter­mined to make a dif­fer­ence in her com­mu­ni­ty, Dythe has been go­ing from house to house, do­ing her own pover­ty analy­sis of fam­i­lies.

“I would help peo­ple sign up forms for dis­abil­i­ty grants and to get food cards. What is sad, is there are 15 peo­ple whose food cards have been cut. One man with an am­pu­tat­ed leg and his neigh­bours were feed­ing him be­cause he has noth­ing in his house,” she added.

Al­though she was tak­ing a risk open­ing her home to strangers, Dythe said she un­der­stood what pover­ty was.

Her pur­ple and white house, dec­o­rat­ed with a big yel­low flower, has be­come a bea­con of hope to chil­dren and sin­gle moth­ers in need. She al­so res­cues stray an­i­mals and be­cause of her kind­ness to oth­ers, she is al­ways giv­en gifts of ap­pre­ci­a­tion.

Dythe has sev­er­al va­ri­eties of com­mon fowl and a Saa­nen goat. She breeds the chick­ens, sells eggs and plans to en­gage more with the UWI to help dis­abled peo­ple.

“I would like to see more em­ploy­ment for per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties. We can con­tribute to so­ci­ety whilst earn­ing an in­come. There is a need for more pro­grammes apart from the dis­abil­i­ty grant,” she said.

Dythe hopes to com­plete her home in the new year and to al­so lob­by for the re­fur­bish­ment of the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre.

Any­one want­i­ng to con­tact Dythe to as­sist can call her at 486-5377.