Senior Reporter
shaliza.hassanali@guardian.co.tt
After waiting for more than a year on a school transfer, 15-year-old dropout Rehana Badaloo has finally been placed in a classroom.
Overjoyed that she can now continue her education at the Manzanilla Secondary School, Rehana admitted she was reduced to tears when she received the great news last month.
“Yes, I cried when I heard that the transfer was approved by the Ministry of Education. I still can’t believe it,” said Rehana, as she recalled the moment.
Rehana’s emotions also got the better of her on September 4 when she started her first day of school.
The teenager’s plight was highlighted last month in a Sunday Guardian article headlined “Delayed transfer leads to dropout.”
Her touching story pulled at the heartstrings of our readers and the public.
From a toddler to a teenager, Rehana has endured a hard life at her Marquis Road, Plum Mitan home.
Rehana, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, sat the 2022 Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) examination and was placed at Biche High School which would have cost her struggling grandparents, Deoragie Baldeo and Lucian Dandrade, $70 a day in transport.
The family survives on Baldeo’s monthly pension of $3,500.
It would have cost Baldeo $1,400 each month in taxi fares to send Rehana to the far-flung school.
Last July, Baldeo asked that Rehana be transferred to the Manzanilla Secondary School which is closer to their home.
The family waited for 14 months for the transfer but received no feedback.
They raised their plight in the Sunday Guardian and Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly committed to get Rehana into a classroom.
On Friday, the 68-year-old pensioner praised the newspaper for stepping in.
“All yuh (Sunday Guardian) help get that child back in school. Thank God! Otherwise ah would ah still be waiting for the transfer,” Baldeo said.
When school reopened this academic term, Baldeo was asked to visit Manzanilla Secondary where she was given a Form One booklist for her granddaughter
A good samaritan came forward and bought Rehana’s textbooks and school supplies.
In an attempt to do her part, Baldeo sacrificed $175 from her pension to purchase one school shirt and a skirt for Rehana.
“The most important thing is the child going to school now. When she comes home from school she does have to wash the shirt so it would be clean for the next day.”
She said if rain falls at night, however, “the shirt would not dry properly and she would have to go to school with the shirt damp”.
Baldeo said, “When I could put aside a little money again the child would get a next shirt. Everything takes a little time. God is good.”
Baldeo spends $400 a month for Rehana to attend school.
“It’s a big sacrifice I am making because I know the value of ah education today. Education is the only way out of this poverty we living in. I didn’t get a proper education as a child and I want to make sure that what I didn’t have for myself that my granddaughter get. I just want her to have a better life than mine.”
Baldeo admitted that the family has to further cut and contrive for Rehana’s education and a better future.
Smiling from ear to ear, Rehana said she was faced with mixed emotions going back to school.
“Just putting on my uniform on the first day made me burst into tears. My grandmother had to console me. I realised that through no fault of my own I was deprived of an education for all these months. I was left behind.”
On the flip side, Rehana said she was happy to be in a place where she could learn again.
Having settled into her class of 40 students, Rehana said she has made new friends while her teachers have been helping her along the way.
“If I have a problem in a particular subject they would assist me. I have been trying to deal with the schoolwork. It’s a big shift from primary to secondary school but I am loving it.”
She said her teachers have already warned her not to be distracted by other children.
“They also advised me to never give up and keep focused on my goals.”
Rehana, who has aspirations of becoming a teacher, said her favourite subject is English.
Growing up, Rehana’s life was filled with setbacks.
When she was one year old, her mother walked out on her father.
Unable to care for his daughter, Rehana’s father wanted to give her up for adoption but Baldeo and Dandrade stepped in and became her legal guardians.
Rehana lives in a rickety two-bedroom home built on stilts. The house, constructed from crude pieces of lumber and sheets of weather-beaten plywood, has no indoor plumbing. The family uses rainwater collected in three water tanks for cooking, bathing and cleaning.
Inside the dilapidated shack, the only furnishings are a tattered two-seater couch and a television set that has stopped working.
The family cooks their meals on a makeshift fireside.
Six weeks before Rehana wrote the SEA examination, her 30-year-old mother, a market vendor, died from a massive heart attack.
But not even these circumstances could stop her from her goal of getting a proper education. Rehana is determined to succeed.