Sascha Wil­son

Fac­ing the sad predica­ment of not be­ing able to pro­vide for her four chil­dren, in­clud­ing a ba­by, Su­san Niles is plead­ing to be re­in­stat­ed in her job.

For five years, Niles, 42, worked with a con­trac­tor on the Na­tion­al Re­for­esta­tion and Wa­ter­shed Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Pro­gramme. She was as­signed to San Fer­nan­do Hill.

On March 4 she pro­ceed­ed on ma­ter­ni­ty leave. How­ev­er, when she asked about her job af­ter her leave ex­pired this month, she re­ceived the shock­ing news that she was no longer em­ployed. She was told the con­trac­tors had been changed and the pro­gramme is no longer un­der the Agri­cul­ture Min­istry.

Niles found out that dur­ing her ab­sence, the pro­gramme was trans­ferred to the Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny. The con­trac­tors' ser­vices were ter­mi­nat­ed and fresh con­tracts were award­ed. How­ev­er, some of the work­ers were re­hired.

In an in­ter­view at her Rose­hill Street, Clax­ton Bay home, she re­called: "They told me that they don't have my name as one of the work­ers on San Fer­nan­do Hill. I went to the pre­vi­ous con­trac­tor and he say that they un­der new man­age­ment and they can­not do any­thing about that and they have no space."

Due to the COVID-19 sit­u­a­tion, Niles' hus­band, a ma­son, has not been get­ting work and she said there have been on­ly "ah lil day work" and those have been few and far be­tween.

She said there were many days when she has noth­ing to feed her three sons, ages 13, 10 and six, and her two-month-old daugh­ter. Her el­dest son will be sit­ting the Sec­ondary En­trance Ex­am­i­na­tion in Au­gust. Her step­son, age 22, al­so lives with them.

Susan Niles stand in front of her home in Claxton Day.

RISHI RAGOONATH

The fam­i­ly got a tem­po­rary food card for three months, but that has since ex­pired.

"Right about now it has noth­ing, the ba­by has no pam­pers, no milk, be­cause I have no cash com­ing in," she said.

Niles is plead­ing to get her job back.

"It is chal­leng­ing right now be­cause of the vol­ume of chil­dren, just now they have to go to school, they have to eat. Most days now they have noth­ing to eat, no food­stuff noth­ing. Some days I won­der what go­ing on, where I get­ting mon­ey from be­cause we have no find of food for them to eat and is chil­dren," she said.

Niles plans to ap­ply for a per­ma­nent food card, but in the mean­time re­lies heav­i­ly on ham­pers or good samar­i­tans for help.

"I don't want to live in pover­ty, I just want a job. I don't know if the peo­ple in charge could look over my sit­u­a­tion and give me back my work please," she plead­ed.

Due to COVID-19, Niles said her ma­ter­ni­ty leave pa­per­work was been com­plet­ed by her for­mer em­ploy­er. She is hop­ing it will be done soon so she could ap­ply for the NIS ben­e­fit.

Any­one will­ing to as­sist the fam­i­ly can con­tact Niles at 343-2860.