English
News
UWI students build home
for mom of 5
August 9, 2009
Source: By CAROL MATROO, Trinidad & Tobago's Newsday
A young UWI student learns the rudiments of putting mortar to bricks....
Arlene Elias has been a single mother for the past 17 years. She lived on a lot of land on Green Street in Tunapuna all her young life, and then later when she began raising her five children. It has not been an easy life for Elias who has struggled to keep her family together without any assistance from their father – trying to keep a roof over their heads, food in their stomachs, clothes on their bodies.
The woodwork holding the house together is falling apart and there is no electricity or running water. The air is stifling in the small house which has been divided into two rooms, and there are mattresses lying on the floor. A make-shift kitchen forms part of the second room.
One of the youngest of the Elias clan began a temper tantrum that escalated into a mind-blowing fit. Another sat quietly as his mother plaited his hair. There were no comfy sofas or mats on the floor, just bare concrete.
Two of Elias’ younger children were asleep on a single bed in the sweltering heat.
But, through the help of students of the University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine, various secondary and primary schools, people like Elias are being given a new hope, a better chance of providing comfort, stability and protection for their families.
The “You Can Help” programme, which was started by the director of North Hall, St Augustine, Eric Feeley, and aided by UWI Spanish lecturer in the Liberal arts department, Rómulo Guedez- Hernandez, has been assisting families in need for the past five years.
The words of St Josemaria, founder of the Opus Dei, provided the projects initial inspiration: “A university must educate its students to have a sense of service to society, promoting the common good with their professional work and their activity. University people should be responsible citizens with a healthy concern for the problems of other people and a generous spirit which brings them to face these problems and to resolve them in the best possible way. It is the task of universities to foster these attitudes in their students.”
Each year, the “You Can Help” programme builds a home for a family it deems needy.
The project began in 2005 with a home for a family of eight in Gran Couva whose living conditions were deemed “deplorable”. A group of about 70 university and high school students decide to pitch in and help with the construction of a new home for the family.
This was just the beginning for these youngsters to channel their energies into helping others. It has since become an annual activity which has showed the generosity of many students who have toiled and sweated to alleviate the squalid living environments under which some families are forced to live.
The programme has since included housing for families in St Augustine, Caura Road, St John’s Road and now Tunapuna. The project only allows for one home each year since the students are able to volunteer their free time only during the July/August vacation.
“This programme is a challenge for the students to give to the society and to get to know the needs of others. It is not only about academics, but it is also an application of what they have learned. The programme is not only to give the students credit, but it is more of a chance for them to give to the society and also when they are on the job working, they are more aware of the needs of others, the less fortunate,” Guedez-Hernandez said as he watched several young men levelling the earth to lay down the foundation of the new home.
There were students from various departments at UWI including social sciences, natural sciences and engineering.
How did they determine which family was in utmost need of help?
“We hear about them from community leaders, parish priests, students and Eric Feeley, who has a lot of contact with people from different areas. This project is the case of a single mother who has no support.
“The funding comes from donors, private individuals, groups... But there are not many and we need more support from the private and public sector to help these families. Sometimes we get used items that are in good condition and that we can use,” Guedez-Hernandez said.
The new two-room construction for the Elias family is expected to be completed by the end of this month. It would be a far cry from the suffocating wooden structure that is literally falling apart at the seams, barely unable to contain the family that includes five children and three grandchildren.
“This house has two rooms and the idea is to build a bigger, better home for them,” Guedez- Hernandez said.
Elias, who said she worked for minimum wage when she could get it, and admitted that her daughter and son-in-law also worked for menial wages, said it was not enough for the family to get by.
“I have built three homes before but the money I had at the time I used wood because I couldn’t buy what I really wanted like concrete and bricks.
“This is a great help. I have to say I am one of the lucky ones because there are people who are worse off than me, they don’t even have land to build a home, but I thank God for this. Not having a husband here, it is very hard for me,” Elias said as she watched the young men working under a vicious midday sun, sweat permeating each and every pore.
But, they endured nonetheless.
“Seventeen years as a single mom... I have to work, make sure everything in order here. I have to try and build a place for them, but I have to say praise and thank God, I have to say is a blessing in disguise because we are very lucky because some people don’t get this kind of assistance.
Like when the father leave the mother and some of them end up on the streets.
I have to thank God very much because if it wasn’t for the Creator, I don’t know where I might have been and is God I have to thank for this because he is all that we have... Don’t matter we black, we white, nobody is better than any body. Don’t matter what background you come from, you still ain’t better than nobody because we have to go one place and that is in a box, and we can’t carry anything,” Elias said.
The happy mother is awaiting the day when she could move into her new home.
A young UWI student learns the rudiments of putting mortar to bricks....
The woodwork holding the house together is falling apart and there is no electricity or running water. The air is stifling in the small house which has been divided into two rooms, and there are mattresses lying on the floor. A make-shift kitchen forms part of the second room.
One of the youngest of the Elias clan began a temper tantrum that escalated into a mind-blowing fit. Another sat quietly as his mother plaited his hair. There were no comfy sofas or mats on the floor, just bare concrete.
Two of Elias’ younger children were asleep on a single bed in the sweltering heat.
But, through the help of students of the University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine, various secondary and primary schools, people like Elias are being given a new hope, a better chance of providing comfort, stability and protection for their families.
The “You Can Help” programme, which was started by the director of North Hall, St Augustine, Eric Feeley, and aided by UWI Spanish lecturer in the Liberal arts department, Rómulo Guedez- Hernandez, has been assisting families in need for the past five years.
The words of St Josemaria, founder of the Opus Dei, provided the projects initial inspiration: “A university must educate its students to have a sense of service to society, promoting the common good with their professional work and their activity. University people should be responsible citizens with a healthy concern for the problems of other people and a generous spirit which brings them to face these problems and to resolve them in the best possible way. It is the task of universities to foster these attitudes in their students.”
Each year, the “You Can Help” programme builds a home for a family it deems needy.
The project began in 2005 with a home for a family of eight in Gran Couva whose living conditions were deemed “deplorable”. A group of about 70 university and high school students decide to pitch in and help with the construction of a new home for the family.
This was just the beginning for these youngsters to channel their energies into helping others. It has since become an annual activity which has showed the generosity of many students who have toiled and sweated to alleviate the squalid living environments under which some families are forced to live.
The programme has since included housing for families in St Augustine, Caura Road, St John’s Road and now Tunapuna. The project only allows for one home each year since the students are able to volunteer their free time only during the July/August vacation.
“This programme is a challenge for the students to give to the society and to get to know the needs of others. It is not only about academics, but it is also an application of what they have learned. The programme is not only to give the students credit, but it is more of a chance for them to give to the society and also when they are on the job working, they are more aware of the needs of others, the less fortunate,” Guedez-Hernandez said as he watched several young men levelling the earth to lay down the foundation of the new home.
There were students from various departments at UWI including social sciences, natural sciences and engineering.
How did they determine which family was in utmost need of help?
“We hear about them from community leaders, parish priests, students and Eric Feeley, who has a lot of contact with people from different areas. This project is the case of a single mother who has no support.
“The funding comes from donors, private individuals, groups... But there are not many and we need more support from the private and public sector to help these families. Sometimes we get used items that are in good condition and that we can use,” Guedez-Hernandez said.
The new two-room construction for the Elias family is expected to be completed by the end of this month. It would be a far cry from the suffocating wooden structure that is literally falling apart at the seams, barely unable to contain the family that includes five children and three grandchildren.
“This house has two rooms and the idea is to build a bigger, better home for them,” Guedez- Hernandez said.
Elias, who said she worked for minimum wage when she could get it, and admitted that her daughter and son-in-law also worked for menial wages, said it was not enough for the family to get by.
“I have built three homes before but the money I had at the time I used wood because I couldn’t buy what I really wanted like concrete and bricks.
“This is a great help. I have to say I am one of the lucky ones because there are people who are worse off than me, they don’t even have land to build a home, but I thank God for this. Not having a husband here, it is very hard for me,” Elias said as she watched the young men working under a vicious midday sun, sweat permeating each and every pore.
But, they endured nonetheless.
“Seventeen years as a single mom... I have to work, make sure everything in order here. I have to try and build a place for them, but I have to say praise and thank God, I have to say is a blessing in disguise because we are very lucky because some people don’t get this kind of assistance.
Like when the father leave the mother and some of them end up on the streets.
I have to thank God very much because if it wasn’t for the Creator, I don’t know where I might have been and is God I have to thank for this because he is all that we have... Don’t matter we black, we white, nobody is better than any body. Don’t matter what background you come from, you still ain’t better than nobody because we have to go one place and that is in a box, and we can’t carry anything,” Elias said.
The happy mother is awaiting the day when she could move into her new home.
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