RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Since the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic hit, for­mer Movi­eTowne main­te­nance work­er Jo­vian­na Ed­mund has be­come a shad­ow of her for­mer self.

Painful­ly thin, her face etched with wor­ry, the young moth­er of four is now home­less.

Three weeks ago, her land­lord fi­nal­ly kicked her out be­cause she could not pay her rent.

With her chil­dren in tow, Ed­mund was forced to move all of their be­long­ings to the Re­vival Time As­sem­bly Church in Kings Wharf, San Fer­nan­do.

Her chil­dren aged 12, 10, eight and five, were then sep­a­rat­ed and sent to stay with two rel­a­tives.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Ed­mund said she had fi­nal­ly hit rock bot­tom and could see no way of climb­ing out of the hole in which she found her­self.

“When I look back on my life, I re­al­ly feel sad. It was not a nice life. I nev­er went to Sec­ondary School. I nev­er had a close re­la­tion­ship with my sib­lings who all had the same fa­ther but dif­fer­ent moth­ers. I was the on­ly child for my fa­ther and moth­er and I nev­er fit in with my half broth­ers and sis­ters,” she said.

Ed­mund said she want­ed to make some­thing of her­self and so she start­ed study­ing com­put­ers at Ser­vol Life Cen­tre. She be­came qual­i­fied in net­work­ing, re­pairs and lit­er­a­cy. It was there she met the man who would fa­ther her first three chil­dren.

How­ev­er, as the re­la­tion­ship went down­hill, she said they broke off and she sought as­sis­tance at a women’s shel­ter.

“I lived from place to place, dif­fer­ent places with the chil­dren af­ter we left the shel­ter. I was babysit­ting, care­giv­ing, house­keep­ing, live-in jobs, I used to leave the chil­dren with their fa­ther some­times,” she said.

She said she worked in a day­care for two and a half years and then got a bet­ter job at Movi­eTowne.

Ed­mund said she start­ed go­ing to Faith Cen­tre and met Kesther Ra­goo­bar. Be­liev­ing that her life was head­ing for bet­ter, Ed­mund said she got preg­nant but Ra­goo­bar left her.

On Feb­ru­ary 8, 2019, Ra­goo­bar, 29, was killed af­ter be­ing robbed of $25,000 casi­no win­nings.

Ed­mund said Ra­goo­bar’s re­jec­tion of her took a toll on her health.

She strug­gled with trau­ma and be­gan get­ting men­tal break-downs. In 2018, af­ter be­ing hos­pi­tal­ized, Ed­mund left Movi­eTowne with the hope of re­turn­ing when she was bet­ter.

In March 2020 the pan­dem­ic hit and the Movi­eTowne branch in Ch­agua­nas was sub­se­quent­ly closed down.

Peo­ple who pre­vi­ous­ly helped her could no longer do so and in Feb­ru­ary, Ed­mund said she was giv­en no­tice that she had to va­cate the apart­ment at Cara­pichaima.

“My moth­er took all four chil­dren but I could not stay there with her be­cause (name called) doesn’t want me there,” Ed­mund said.

She ex­plained that the sep­a­ra­tion of her chil­dren and her de­te­ri­o­rat­ing health was a con­stant wor­ry.

“Right now I have pains in my chest, headaches, my back and un­der my ribs. I have acid re­flux be­cause I go hun­gry many times. The doc­tors in the hos­pi­tal ran some tests and said noth­ing is wrong with me. But why am I get­ting all this pain,” she said.

Ed­mund said she was dread­ing the day when she would be re­leased from the hos­pi­tal.

“When I leave here I don’t know where to go. What to do. I am not close with my sib­lings. My moth­er can­not take me in and my fa­ther is now dead,” she added.

Ed­mund said she want­ed to have her own place so she could care for her four chil­dren.

“I had ap­plied for an HDC house ten years ago. I have a ref­er­ence num­ber. I at­tend­ed Ser­vol and I can do com­put­er re­pairs and net­work­ing. If I can get a place to stay with my chil­dren and I get some sta­bil­i­ty, I will be able to do bet­ter,” she said.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, founder of Movi­eTowne Derek Chin said many peo­ple be­came dis­pos­sessed when the coun­try went in­to a lock­down. De­scrib­ing Ed­mund as a good em­ploy­ee, Chin said Ed­mund left be­cause she be­came quite sick and could not work.

“My HR has been in touch and was able to tell me about her. She said that her mind has been af­fect­ed be­cause of abuse. We as­sist­ed with her NIS claims and oth­er ben­e­fits and we are sor­ry to hear of her cur­rent plight,” Chin said.

He added that his team will fol­low-up and see how Ed­mund was do­ing.

Chin not­ed that thou­sands of peo­ple are in the same po­si­tion as Ed­mund.

“COVID and its con­se­quences have cre­at­ed eco­nom­ic and so­cial up­heaval glob­al­ly,” he added.

Any­one want­i­ng to as­sist Ed­mund can con­tact her at 681-8907.