RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Aken­nie Mc Leod’s ap­peal for as­sis­tance has paid off. Yes­ter­day, he re­ceived a call about a job.

McLeod said he was ea­ger to re­turn to work and was over­whelmed by the out­pour­ing of sup­port he re­ceived.

He got many calls of­fer­ing prayers and so­lace. Some of­fered to buy build­ing ma­te­ri­als and give do­na­tions. How­ev­er, his bank ac­count has been closed due to in­suf­fi­cient funds.

“I re­al­ly want to thank every­one who stepped in to help us,” he said. “For years, I’ve been try­ing with what lit­tle I have. I didn’t ex­pect this re­sponse. I just want­ed to give my chil­dren some­thing bet­ter—some­thing I nev­er had,” Mc Leod said.

His wife, Lin­da Li­ma, said they had an ap­point­ment to re­open the bank ac­count this week and she hoped they would fi­nal­ly be able to com­plete their home.

The Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices al­so in­ter­vened, of­fer­ing a grant to help Mc Leod com­plete the home he has been try­ing to build for more than two decades.

Min­is­ter Van­dana Mo­hit mo­bilised a re­sponse team im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter view­ing the re­port. Of­fi­cials vis­it­ed the fam­i­ly at their home in Es­per­ance Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do, and car­ried out an on-site as­sess­ment of their liv­ing con­di­tions.

The min­istry lat­er con­firmed that Mc Leod and his fam­i­ly of eight will re­ceive sup­port through its Na­tion­al So­cial De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme (NS­DP). The as­sis­tance in­cludes ac­cess to grants for home re­pairs, san­i­tary plumb­ing, and house wiring, each with a pro­vi­sion of up to $15,000 in ma­te­ri­als.

In ad­di­tion to hous­ing sup­port, the min­istry’s so­cial wel­fare di­vi­sion is as­sess­ing the fam­i­ly’s el­i­gi­bil­i­ty for food as­sis­tance and ba­sic house­hold ne­ces­si­ties. The Na­tion­al Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Di­vi­sion has al­so stepped in to pro­vide psy­choso­cial sup­port to help the fam­i­ly man­age the chal­lenges they con­tin­ue to face.

Mc Leod, a ma­son by trade, has been work­ing for years to con­struct a safe home for his chil­dren, but in re­cent times he has been un­able to get work.

The home that start­ed more than 20 years ago re­mains un­fin­ished and the fam­i­ly had been liv­ing in a gal­vanised part of the struc­ture, sleep­ing on mat­tress­es placed on top of rot­ted ply­wood.

Any­one who wish­es to sup­port the Mc Leod fam­i­ly can con­tact them di­rect­ly at 364-7967 or do­nate to First Cit­i­zens, La Ro­main, A/C# 3077643.