By Oluatoyin Alleyne
Today is a special day for mothers and many will be pampered and showered with gifts, but for 35-year-old Kendra Rehanna Haywood the only thing that will be on her mind is the possible eviction of herself and seven sons in just over a month’s time.
“Maybe I would cook something nice and maybe my big son, who cuts hair sometimes, may give me a gift but really I would just be depressed about having nowhere to go when the three months up,” Haywood said in a recent interview.
Last month, Haywood was sent a lawyer’s letter informing her that she has to remove from her Lot 59 Cross Street, Werk-en-Rust home in three months. While where she lives is far from comfortable, Haywood says she has no alternative at the moment. The only shelter she knows about for herself and seven sons is the meagre one-bedroom flat they live in at the moment.
And while her mind will today be consumed with finding a home for her family there is no doubt that she will be thinking of her now dead husband, Curtis Robertson. On a day like this, Robertson, like so many other husbands, would have shown his wife how special she was and for this and many other reasons she really misses him.
It was on April 22, 2006, that Haywood’s life as she knew it was shattered when she got a call informing her that her husband and the father of five of her seven sons had been shot and killed. Robertson, who at the time was employed with Strategic Action Security, was shot dead when armed gunmen invaded the home of the late Minister of Agriculture Satyadeow Sawh, who was also killed along with his brother and sister. From that day, life for the woman and her children has been a daily struggle.
She has vowed to see her children through school but at the same time she is fearful of the environment they now live in because of the number of unsavoury characters in the area. So while she is depressed about the fact that she has to move, Haywood said she would gladly move if she had somewhere better to go.
Sitting in her humble sitting room, which is damp and dark and accessed through a narrow passageway, the woman said she would like nothing better than to be able to move from the location. She pointed out that places were expensive to rent and persons were also sceptical about renting their homes to a single mother with many children.
“I have land at Parfait Harmony; the last Minister of Housing gives it to me free and all I had to pay for was the transport.”
Haywood has since visited the location and she said the area was ideal for her family. “The environment is good, the air is clean and the houses are not close together – I would love to go there if I get a house.”
She has no money to build a house and she said several attempts to get some help with this from Food for the Poor have proven futile. “I get letter of recommendation from many people and many places, even the Ministry of Social Services but they [Food for the Poor] keep telling me I have to wait like everyone else,” Haywood said with a sad shake of the head.
In desperation
However, all is not lost for her and tomorrow her prayers may be answered when she vists the Office of the President to keep an appointment. Haywood revealed that after she received the letter informing her that she had to move, in desperation, she wrote a letter to President Bharrat Jagdeo explaining her plight. “I was so desperate and one night I was at work and I just decide to write to the President. I write he and post the letter last week Monday, and I said Father God please let him respond.” Her prayers were answered last Tuesday when an aide of the President called her and after asking her a few questions told her to visit the office tomorrow morning for a meeting. “To be honest I never ask no one in the government to build a house for me after I get the land from the minister; I try with Food for the Poor and World Homes but I ent get any help,” the woman said. She hopes that tomorrow’s meeting would end with her being assisted in having a home built. A letter was also written to Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud who has since indicated that he had forwarded the letter to Minister of Housing and Water Harrinarine Nawbatt.
Haywood said if the land had been available before her husband died, by now he “woulda done put up something on the land for we to live in.”
She recalled that even before the housing ministry was burnt down on Homestretch Avenue they had applied for land, and had kept following up the application but to no avail. After her husband died she had a meeting with Prime Minister Sam Hinds and she produced documents to prove that they had applied for a piece of land all those years ago. The Prime Minister in turn made an appointment for her to see then Minister of Housing and Water Shaik Baksh, who after apologising for the long wait gave her the piece of land.
‘We trying’
And while the issue of finding a house for herself and family is at the top of the list, just below that is finding food to put on the table for her children and sending them to school. She receives public assistance, and this coupled with her salary as a Cops Security Guard amounts to $50,000. Out of that, some $15,000 goes for rent, $7,000 for the light bill and about $1,000 for the phone bill.
“So you see when the months come I find it a struggle to feed myself and children and to send them to school. But I want them to stay in school. The big one writing CXC examination next year,” the woman said. Her children are between the ages of 16 and three years, and only the youngest is not in school. He is expected to begin school in September.
Haywood said she works strictly nights as she wants to be at home during the day to ensure that her children go to school and also to remain at home with the youngest.
“I try to buy certain things for my children, but with the prices now it is getting harder. Just the other day I at work and I say to myself I ent buy no bananas for them in a while. It getting harder and harder. But we trying,” she said, adding that as the boys get older they are also becoming a little more difficult for her to discipline them as a single mother. “They are sometimes unmanageable, but you know I would never give them away or want them to separate.”
She received some help when her husband died, but after a few months all the help dried up. And although an account was opened at Republic Bank and a public plea made for citizens to place monies in the account for herself and family, according to Haywood, she was told that not a dime went into the account. She received $15,000 each month for six months from Giddings Pawn Shop and the company also gave her a Christmas hamper that year.
But as it is now, expect for the public assistance, all the help has dried up.
She is grateful to a 72-year-old uncle of her dead husband who is a pensioner in the US and who helps her with clothing for the children. “I does tell uncle that without his help with clothes, I don’t know how I would make it. And then he calls every week to see how we doing; I really grateful to him,” the woman said.
No help
Haywood said she could not complete the interview without mentioning that she received just over $2,000 in assistance from her husband’s former employer.
Haywood herself was employed with the company, Strategic Action Security, but said she resigned just over a month after her husband died after she was moved from one location and sent to an unsafe one.
She said even though she complained about the location she was told by her employer that there was nothing he could do.
The woman said she believed that the company should have assisted his family financially because her husband died on the job. She said the company did not even help with funeral expenses; this was done by the government.
She said after some time had passed and she realised she was getting no help from the company she approached its owner; all he gave her was just over $2,000 in an envelope, which accounted for one day’s pay for each of the months her husband had worked for that year.
Stabroek News contacted the company and according to an employee who did not want to be named, the company assisted the woman with much more then the figure quoted, but he could not say what the sum was. The employee also said the only person who could speak on the issue was the owner, a Mr Kanhai, who was not available at the time.
The employee also said, which was confirmed by Haywood, that the company had been giving weekly financial contributions to Haywood’s foster father, Aga Khan, who was also shot during the April 22 incident. After being hospitalised for some time Khan was forced to leave his job as he was deemed medically unfit. Haywood said she was happy that the company was assisting Khan but noted that she and her sons should have also been given some help since her husband died on the job.
