Aban­doned by his fam­i­ly as an in­fant, Daniel Ay­oung has faced chal­lenges too nu­mer­ous to count.

Now 24, he be­lieves not even the Gov­ern­ment has giv­en him the sup­port he needs.

At just one month old, Ay­oung was placed in the St Mary’s Chil­dren’s Home. He claims that his ex­pe­ri­ence at the Tacarigua home was sim­i­lar to those list­ed in the find­ings men­tioned in both the 1997 Robert Sab­ga re­port and the 2021 Jus­tice Ju­dith Jones re­port, which high­light­ed abus­es ex­pe­ri­enced by wards of the state at chil­dren’s homes across the coun­try.

Ay­oung al­leges he suf­fered both phys­i­cal and sex­u­al abuse at the hands of staff mem­bers at the home. He de­scribed in chill­ing de­tail the haunt­ing mem­o­ry of that abuse by a male em­ploy­ee, which he said be­gan when he was just 13 years old.

“When he (an em­ploy­ee) start­ed to strip, he turned me over on my back. And to be hon­est, he pen­e­trat­ed me and as soon as he did that, I get up one time ... start­ed to scram­ble with him, start­ed to pelt chairs and thing to­wards him and ex­it the door and ran out naked out of the kitchen straight up to my dor­mi­to­ry and re­port­ed it to the su­per­vi­sor,” Ay­oung re­called.

Nu­mer­ous re­ports were made by Ay­oung to su­per­vi­sors and man­agers at the home, but he claimed in­stead of be­ing pro­tect­ed, he was per­se­cut­ed and ac­cused of try­ing to tar­nish the im­age of the home. This left him feel­ing lone­ly and for­got­ten and as a re­sult, his men­tal health suf­fered.

“It was dif­fi­cult just see­ing oth­er chil­dren’s par­ents come in to vis­it them. And I say to my­self as a child where is my par­ents, when my par­ents go­ing to come to give me a lit­tle snack as a child or to give me a hug,” Ay­oung said.

In the years that fol­lowed the abuse, Ay­oung was di­ag­nosed with a ma­jor de­pres­sive dis­or­der. He said the med­ica­tion he was pre­scribed caused var­i­ous symp­toms, which con­tributed to his in­abil­i­ty to fin­ish his high school ed­u­ca­tion.

Last year, Ay­oung was kicked out of the chil­dren’s home, as he had sur­passed the age of most res­i­dents. With no one to turn to, he joined the groups of home­less peo­ple liv­ing in Port-of-Spain, scav­eng­ing for food and sleep­ing on the streets.

His first thought was to lo­cate any fam­i­ly he may have. Armed on­ly with his moth­er’s name, he start­ed his hunt at the hos­pi­tal where he was born in 1998.

“The nurs­es told me that ‘yes’ they have a file. They give me a num­ber for her, I called the num­ber, I didn’t get through. They gave me an ad­dress. I went to the said ad­dress, I did not get through. When I went to the ad­dress I saw a house and is on­ly bush around the house,” he said.

Al­ready emo­tion­al­ly ex­haust­ed, Ay­oung gave up and vowed to fo­cus on his own de­vel­op­ment to avoid fur­ther dis­ap­point­ments.

Full of de­ter­mi­na­tion, Ay­oung start­ed look­ing for a job but was un­able to ob­tain one. He said this was be­cause every­where he went re­quired a rec­om­men­da­tion let­ter. He tried to ob­tain one from the chil­dren’s home but claims he was told they do not pro­vide those types of let­ters.

Ay­oung claimed he vis­it­ed the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions but said he was re­ject­ed be­cause he was not el­i­gi­ble for the as­sis­tance he was seek­ing.

“They told me that I can’t get pub­lic as­sis­tance be­cause I don’t have no fixed place of abode ... no ad­dress then. So they say that I can’t get no pub­lic as­sis­tance. I can’t get a food card and I’m not dis­abled. So they squash every­thing right there,” Ay­oung claimed.

Ay­oung con­tin­ues to fight for sur­vival on the streets of Port-of-Spain and strug­gles to find a safe place to sleep and food to eat. De­spite his trou­bles, he ar­rived for his in­ter­view well dressed and clean, on­ly the emo­tion in his voice be­tray­ing the hope­less­ness he faces on a dai­ly ba­sis.

How­ev­er, he is striv­ing to achieve some kind of sta­bil­i­ty and said he has hope that things can get bet­ter.

“I’m 24 years of age and I’m too young to give up. So that is why I’m per­sis­tent and I con­tin­ue fight­ing on a dai­ly ba­sis. I won’t let it get the bet­ter of me. I will con­tin­ue fight­ing be­cause I re­al­ly want to get my life in or­der to get a sta­ble job to get some­where to rest my head com­fort­ably, so I don’t have to be pan­ick­ing when the night come to get some­thing to eat on a dai­ly ba­sis; where I can be com­fort­able and have a life then.”

Af­ter speak­ing to Ay­oung, Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Port-of-Spain May­or Joel Mar­tinez, who said the City Cor­po­ra­tion does not have the re­sources to as­sist and his of­fice is re­strict­ed by law.

“We have the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices that is ful­ly equipped with lots of peo­ple who are able and un­der­stand when things like this hap­pen and are sup­posed to re­spond to it,” he said.

Guardian Me­dia al­so reached out to So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Min­is­ter Don­na Cox but there has been no re­sponse.

Any­one will­ing to as­sist Ay­oung can con­tact 462-3446.