Carisa Lee

Re­porter

Carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Nine-year-old Venezue­lan na­tion­al Zoey Mar­tinez says she can­not wait to phys­i­cal­ly at­tend school in Sep­tem­ber.

“I was see­ing class on­line,” she said.

She came with her par­ents to this coun­try in 2016 af­ter they fled the un­rest in Venezuela in the hope of a bet­ter life. Af­ter reg­is­ter­ing in 2019, Zoey’s fam­i­ly thought a good life was fi­nal­ly on the cards.

Since then, her moth­er, Maria Mar­tinez, said while she and her hus­band were able to live, work and re­set­tle they have not been able to en­rol Zoey in a school. She on­ly at­tend­ed a pri­vate preschool and class­es at the Liv­ing Wa­ter Com­mu­ni­ty.

Zoey said she’s ex­cit­ed about this new chap­ter and to see if any of her new friends are fond of foot­baller Cris­tiano Ronal­do and roti like she is.

“I like to study, I want more friends and when I grow up I want to play foot­ball,” she said.

Last month, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said spaces in 19 Ro­man Catholic schools will be open to 200 mi­grant chil­dren. These chil­dren were re­quired to have par­ents/guardians who reg­is­tered with the Gov­ern­ment in 2019, take an Eng­lish lan­guage test and ob­tain an A1 lev­el, be im­mu­nised for en­try in­to schools, and have a stu­dent per­mit from the Gov­ern­ment.

But af­ter they took the UWI ex­am last year that proved they were ready for in­te­gra­tion, there was an­oth­er box to tick—the mi­grant chil­dren had to wait on the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al for the reg­u­la­tions.

This time around, Gads­by-Dol­ly en­sured that she con­tact­ed the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty months be­fore Sep­tem­ber to en­sure the pupils get the per­mits they need for en­rol­ment along with their im­mu­ni­sa­tion cards.

The pro­gres­sion has Mar­tinez op­ti­mistic, even though she said they have heard bro­ken promis­es from politi­cians be­fore.

“I felt ex­treme­ly hap­py be­cause of my daugh­ter and all the chil­dren who need an ed­u­ca­tion who are in Trinidad and To­ba­go ... When they said on­ly 200, I felt very sad plus it didn’t hap­pen and I felt sad be­cause ed­u­ca­tion is a right, every child has a right to ed­u­ca­tion,” she ex­plained.

She said she was wor­ried about her daugh­ter’s fu­ture and vowed to en­sure she had every­thing for her first day of school.

“Both of us, my hus­band and I, work, we will or­gan­ise. I know it’s a very long list, we will find a way if it’s re­al­ly ex­pen­sive,” she shared.

For­mer Uni­ver­si­ty Pro­fes­sor Emeri­ta Perez and her fam­i­ly came to T&T in 2018 af­ter she said they were wrong­ful­ly ac­cused, along with the oth­er pro­fes­sors, of in­cit­ing protests among the stu­dent pop­u­la­tion.

“I taught Eng­lish and en­gi­neer­ing and my hus­band taught draw­ing and physics ... At that time the stu­dents were re­belling against the Gov­ern­ment ... We were vis­it­ed by gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and per­se­cut­ed. They didn’t al­low us to get ahead in the uni­ver­si­ty be­cause those po­si­tions are po­lit­i­cal,” Perez claimed.

Her ten-year-old son, Ser­gio Bo­li­var, has nev­er at­tend­ed school and when Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to in­ter­view him, he broke down in tears at just the thought of leav­ing his moth­er’s side.

His old­er broth­er San­ti­a­go Bo­li­var, 14, at­tend­ed class­es at the Liv­ing Wa­ter Com­mu­ni­ty and while he’s ex­cit­ed to move from be­hind the screen to the front of the class­room he wor­ried about his broth­er’s in­te­gra­tion.

“I’m wor­ried be­cause some­times chil­dren can be cru­el ... they can do him wrong, he can be bul­lied,” San­ti­a­go said.

The for­mer pro­fes­sors al­so worked with their chil­dren at home and taught them Eng­lish, Span­ish, and math­e­mat­ics.

Perez asked teach­ers to be un­der­stand­ing be­cause the chil­dren have come from trau­mat­ic sit­u­a­tions.