In an ef­fort to se­cure a school trans­fer for her son, Na­dia Singh, ac­com­pa­nied by for­mer Na­pari­ma MP Nizam Baksh, vis­it­ed the Vic­to­ria Ed­u­ca­tion Dis­trict in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day to meet school su­per­vi­sors.

Singh, a wid­ow, doesn’t know whether the trans­fer was ap­proved and is wor­ried that every pass­ing day is a missed op­por­tu­ni­ty for his ed­u­ca­tion.

“I don’t want my son to miss out on his ed­u­ca­tion. We are hop­ing that with Mr Baksh’s help, some­thing will be done,” she said.

Baksh, who served as an MP for 19 years, has been a pil­lar of sup­port for the Singh fam­i­ly, ever since their home was de­stroyed by a land­slip in 2013.

“I have known Mr Baksh for years. Even be­fore my hus­band passed away in 2016, Mr Baksh has tried to help us in cer­tain sit­u­a­tions and now he is here con­cern­ing my son, and I ap­pre­ci­ate him,” said Singh, who ex­pressed her grat­i­tude to Baksh af­ter he took them to the min­istry’s of­fice in his pri­vate ve­hi­cle.

Her son, Randy, re­peat­ed his ap­peal for a trans­fer. “Please help me, I re­al­ly hope to get a trans­fer to go to school. I want to go to school.”

Baksh said he was deeply moved by the fam­i­ly’s plight.

“I read in the news­pa­per that they were hav­ing ma­jor chal­lenges in get­ting a trans­fer from La Ro­main to Bar­rack­pore. This touched my heart, and I de­cid­ed that I would do what­ev­er I could to help this child get a trans­fer. I brought them here to the San Fer­nan­do of­fice to get some ad­vice on how we can get this child trans­ferred as soon as pos­si­ble,” he said.

How­ev­er, school su­per­vi­sors were in a meet­ing when the fam­i­ly ar­rived at the off­ic, so they were giv­en a phone num­ber to con­tact the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry’s head of­fice. Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gadsy-Dol­ly was con­tact­ed for com­ment but has not yet re­spond­ed.

The Singh fam­i­ly has faced a se­ries of tragedies since 2013. Their home col­lapsed due to a land­slip and then sole bread­win­ner, Kim­c­hand Singh, drowned in Moru­ga, leav­ing Na­dia to care for their four chil­dren, Sasha, Dar­i­an, Gaitri and Randy.

The fam­i­ly’s le­gal case against WASA for the loss of their home fell apart, leav­ing them fi­nan­cial­ly des­ti­tute and Na­dia sup­ports the fam­i­ly by clean­ing oth­er peo­ple’s homes. On her mod­est in­come, she rents a wood­en house next to the ru­ins of their home.

Any­one want­i­ng to help the fam­i­ly can call 316-8990.

—Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va