Canada-based Guyanese family seeking to find relative after decades without contact
An overseas-based Guyanese family is seeking the public’s assistance to locate their 64-year-old relative who they have not heard from or seen in more than four decades.
In an interview with Sunday Stabroek yesterday, Gerald De Souza said he is trying to locate his brother, Terrence Persaud, called ‘Terry’.
De Souza explained that he, his two brothers and their mother, who is now in her 90s, left Guyana in the 1980s to live in Canada.
He said they left Persaud behind because at the time of their departure they were unable to locate him. De Souza said it was customary for Persaud to leave home for long periods and return.
According to De Souza, the family has no relatives in Guyana and so they were unable to enquire about Persaud over the years. It was only recently when De Souza returned to Guyana that his interest in finding his brother grew. “The opportunity never presented itself for us to return until recently……We are not even sure if he is alive or not,” De Souza said.
Persaud’s mother has also been asking for him continuously. “She keeps asking about him and so on… .Unfortunately we weren’t in a position to really start searching as hard as it is now,” De Souza said.
During his recent visit here, De Souza said he began to desperately search for Persaud but was unable to locate him.
He said he placed an ad in one of the daily newspapers. After it was published, De Souza said a doctor from a city hospital contacted him. “She [doctor] called me and she said she believes that she treat a person by the name Terrence Persaud and she said he is living at Chavez home in Berbice,” he related.
“I tried very hard to get a hold of that place [the Hugo Chavez home] and all of that and eventually somebody was telling me why you don’t check at shelters,” De Souza told this newspaper.
Eager for a clue, De Souza said he also checked a number of shelters, including the Night shelter at East La Penitence, Georgetown for Persaud. However, his efforts were futile.
He said someone then suggested that he check the Palms. “I went to the Palms and the person in charge told he that he recall a scenario with a Terrence Persaud who was at the hospital after he was injured and he thinks he is at Chavez (ditto),” De Souza explained.
In a bid to assist him, De Souza said an official from the Palms reached out to Chavez home and they confirmed that a Terrence Persaud was living there.
As a result, he said he travelled to Berbice to reach the individual. However, upon arriving, De Souza said while the person had the same name and similar age, but it was not his brother.
“I was all excited about it but when we got there .... We met with a Terrence Persaud that lives there. It turns out he wasn’t the Terrence I was looking for. He got the same name and was around the same age…That was kind of disappointing,” De Souza said.
Time did not permit De Souza to search any further since he had to return to Canada.
De Souza and his family hopes that Persaud is still alive and well. “Our hopes are high,” he said.
Anyone who may have information on the whereabouts of Persaud is asked to contact De Souza via WhatsApp on telephone number +1 519 939 8265.