SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

A new home could soon be on the hori­zon for strug­gling sin­gle-par­ent Ke­ston Et­ti­enne.

Two weeks af­ter Et­ti­enne, 50, was fea­tured in a Guardian Me­dia ar­ti­cle about his hard­ships with his 13-year-old twin daugh­ters Shan­tai and Sheimia Et­ti­enne, the Land Set­tle­ment Agency (LSA) vis­it­ed his crum­bling home in Laven­tille and said they will try to as­sist him with a home im­prove­ment grant.

The news, Et­ti­enne said, took him by sur­prise.

“I have to go through the process like every oth­er ap­pli­cant. LSA has to do their as­sess­ment. We now start this jour­ney. I am hop­ing for the best,” Et­ti­enne said.

Et­ti­enne’s De­cem­ber 24, 2023, ar­ti­cle “Dis­ci­pline Is Key To Suc­cess,” cre­at­ed an out­pour­ing of sup­port for his fam­i­ly.

His sto­ry gen­er­at­ed more than 122,000 views on the web­site of CNC3 News about his girls’ high aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ments at Bish­op’s Cen­te­nary Col­lege and their pas­sion for play­ing the steel pan and cro­chet­ing, de­spite their chal­lenges.

The twins are kept off so­cial me­dia and are shown right from wrong.

The con­di­tions un­der which the Et­ti­ennes live are not ide­al.

Their wood­en two-bed­room home is ter­mite-in­fest­ed and falling apart.

De­spite this, Et­ti­enne keeps a pos­i­tive out­look for his daugh­ters in their com­mu­ni­ty which is rid­dled with gang war­fare, gun vi­o­lence and mur­ders.

The girls at­tend­ed Rose Hill Pri­ma­ry School which grabbed head­lines in 2021 for the rapid gun­fire it faced with war­ring gangs in the dis­trict.

The bul­lets that ripped through the school’s walls dis­rupt­ed class­es and fright­ened the pupils who had to dart un­der chairs and ta­bles to safe­guard them­selves.

Dur­ing those dif­fi­cult times, Et­ti­enne, a part-time clean­er at the school, en­sured his twins fo­cused on their school work and kept ground­ed.

Among those who ren­dered as­sis­tance and of­fered words of en­cour­age­ment were po­lice of­fi­cers, priests, aca­d­e­mics, a na­tion­al foot­baller and a State agency.

On Christ­mas Day scores of peo­ple showed up at Et­ti­enne’s home of­fer­ing gifts and gro­ceries to as­sist the fam­i­ly.

“Some of these peo­ple were from my com­mu­ni­ty...they too are in need but they still tried to give some­thing small. It showed that Laven­tille peo­ple still have love in their hearts...they still care. God al­ways showed me to walk by faith and not sight. He sent a few good peo­ple to as­sist us.”

Of­fi­cers from the Mor­vant and Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tions who showed up at his home al­so praised Et­ti­enne for his par­ent­ing skills and de­ter­mi­na­tion not to give up.

Dr Wayne Charles-Sover­all, se­nior lec­tur­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Cave Hill, cam­pus in Bar­ba­dos reached out to Et­ti­enne telling him that he want­ed to share his re­mark­able sto­ry with his un­der­grad­u­ate stu­dents who don’t have a per­spec­tive of life out­side of the coun­try.

Trinida­di­an po­et, au­thor and mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­er Di­ana Ben­skin who lives in the US was one of the many who com­mu­ni­cat­ed with Et­ti­enne telling him his sto­ry served to in­spire oth­ers in sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions.

Two priests from the Cathe­dral of Im­mac­u­late Con­cep­tion in Port-of-Spain pro­vid­ed the girls with school shoes.

“They al­so blessed the house and them girls,” Et­ti­enne said with pride.

A Tu­na­puna prin­ci­pal whom Et­ti­enne did not name al­so of­fered the teenagers free lessons to as­sist them with their sec­ondary ed­u­ca­tion.

Thank­ing the prin­ci­pal for the kind ges­ture, Shan­tai said, words could not ex­press how she felt.

“We are for­ev­er grate­ful for the help. Our re­pay­ment would be to learn as much as we can and make our fa­ther and com­mu­ni­ty proud,” Sheimia in­ter­ject­ed.

Et­ti­enne was al­so tak­en by sur­prise when a na­tion­al foot­baller showed up at his doorstep telling him he was mo­ti­vat­ed by his sto­ry and wished more fa­thers could fol­low in his foot­steps.

The fam­i­ly al­so re­ceived calls from peo­ple in Ugan­da, France, USA, Ja­maica, Bar­ba­dos and To­ba­go who en­cour­aged him to con­tin­ue stand­ing at his daugh­ters’ side.

“I re­mem­bered not hav­ing any­thing to eat for Christ­mas...my cup­boards were bare. And on Christ­mas morn­ing more than 100 peo­ple came to my home to of­fer a meal and to pro­vide gro­ceries. That feel­ing was mag­i­cal.”

Box­es of food­stuff and cas­es of wa­ter and soft drinks oc­cu­pied the floor of Et­ti­enne’s small kitchen.

“The box­es have been mak­ing us feel claus­tro­pho­bic,” Sheimia said, jok­ing­ly.

Though they have a sur­plus of food, Et­ti­enne said they are still man­ag­ing with­out a re­frig­er­a­tor.

Their wash­ing ma­chine no longer works.

“It’s hard but we still liv­ing ...we go­ing....we fight­ing.”

Any­one wish­ing to help Et­ti­enne can con­tact him at 332 0416.