Many sin­gle moth­ers face ex­ploita­tion and dis­crim­i­na­tion in myr­i­ad ways, from fam­i­ly and friends, in the work­place, evic­tion and un­em­ploy­ment, while some places for rent do not al­low chil­dren.

Sin­gle Moth­ers As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (SMATT) Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Of­fi­cer Joanne O'Gar­ro said if their work­ing hours were re­duced due to COVID-19, their pay was halved, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to pay their bills, rent, pur­chase food, main­tain their chil­dren and find a care­giv­er for them. It means that their mea­gre earn­ings are gone in a mat­ter of days.

O'Gar­ro said an­oth­er ma­jor chal­lenge sin­gle moth­ers faced was the stig­ma from so­ci­ety, and be­ing sub­ject­ed to in­sen­si­tive re­marks from the gen­er­al pub­lic and even coun­sel­lors.

She said some mem­bers have been told "if you didn’t make all those chil­dren, you wouldn't have prob­lems." She said dur­ing coun­selling a mem­ber was even told "to look for a man to help her."

She said sin­gle moth­ers faced many chal­lenges and need­ed as much as­sis­tance as they can get–from food, cloth­ing, hous­ing, and rec­om­mend­ing that low­er-in­come hous­ing should be made avail­able to them.

O'Gar­ro said the as­so­ci­a­tion helped sin­gle moth­ers net­work and com­mu­ni­cate with each oth­er on so­cial me­dia, shar­ing in­for­ma­tion on where they can se­cure al­ter­nate ac­com­mo­da­tions, em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties, min­ders and oth­er as­sis­tance.

Noth­ing to feel bad about reach­ing out for help–Cox

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Don­na Cox said sin­gle-par­ent fe­male-head­ed fam­i­lies are more at risk of fac­ing chal­lenges like pover­ty, un­em­ploy­ment, un­der­em­ploy­ment, home­less­ness and a host of oth­er so­cial is­sues.

She said the min­istry had a pri­ma­ry role to play when these is­sues af­fect­ed such fam­i­lies.

Cox said more than 82 per cent of food sup­port pay­ments are made to fe­male-head­ed house­holds and fe­males head over 70 per cent of the Pub­lic As­sis­tance Grants for fam­i­lies.

She said the ma­jor­i­ty of the min­istry's clien­tèle com­prised fe­male-head­ed house­holds, so there was ab­solute­ly noth­ing to feel bad about for any sin­gle moth­er to reach out for as­sis­tance for her­self and her chil­dren.

She said she want­ed to en­cour­age women who were faced with these cir­cum­stances to come for­ward and let them­selves be known.

Cox said sev­er­al grants, ser­vices and train­ing pro­grammes can be ac­cessed once peo­ple meet the re­quire­ment.

She said at the min­istry, fam­i­lies can ac­cess Pub­lic As­sis­tance Grants, Food Sup­port, Rental As­sis­tance, House­hold Items Grants, House Re­pairs and even a Seed Grant to start up a small busi­ness or pur­sue train­ing to help them set up a busi­ness.

Cox said that the Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment al­so pro­vid­ed coun­selling ser­vices to fam­i­lies in­clu­sive of sin­gle par­ents.

Cox said that she gave an as­sur­ance dur­ing the bud­get de­bate to fos­ter bet­ter re­la­tion­ships, build rap­port and en­gage cit­i­zens, trou­bleshoot prob­lems, fa­cil­i­tate the re­moval of bot­tle­necks with­in the min­istry and pro­vide the most di­rect and prac­ti­cal so­lu­tions in a car­ing and pro­fes­sion­al man­ner.

She said in keep­ing with the whole-of-Gov­ern­ment ap­proach, the min­istry wished to iden­ti­fy some oth­er pro­grammes and ini­tia­tives be­ing of­fered by var­i­ous min­istries across T&T to as­sist sin­gle moth­ers to be­come em­ploy­able or to sup­ple­ment their ex­ist­ing in­comes both in the short term and medi­um term.

These pro­grammes are as fol­lows:

In Trinidad:

*Min­istry of Sports and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment

*Pro­gramme and 40 Un­der 40 Pro­gramme

Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion

*Help­ing You Pre­pare for Em­ploy­ment (HYPE)

Min­istry of Labour

*En­tre­pre­neur­ial Skills Train­ing

Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs

*Com­mu­ni­ty Ed­u­ca­tion (SHORT Skills Train­ing Pro­gramme,

Life-skills, Em­ploy­a­bil­i­ty, En­tre­pre­neur­ship, Ac­tivism, and Pa­tri­o­tism (LEEAP)

*Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices:

Adult Ed­u­ca­tion Pro­grammes

Pub­lic As­sis­tance

Na­tion­al Fam­i­ly Ser­vices)

In To­ba­go:

Di­vi­sion of Health and Well­ness and Fam­i­ly De­vel­op­ment (THA)

*The Re­al­i­sa­tion and Eco­nom­ic Achieve­ment Project (REACH) and

*Pro­grammes for Ado­les­cent Moth­ers (PAM)

'Shed­ding light'

Af­ter the ar­ti­cle 'Sin­gle Moth­er Strug­gling to Cope', was post­ed on­line last Sun­day, Shierneil Kimk­er­an said "I want to bring con­text and clar­i­fi­ca­tion to the ar­ti­cle. The in­ter­view was done to rep­re­sent the Sin­gle Moth­ers As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, be­ing a voice, shed­ding light on the unique needs of sin­gle moth­ers amidst the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and in­spire per­se­ver­ance to those in a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion."