PATH muddle
Family insists 15-year-old no longer benefiting, but programme says she is
ONE St Catherine family is puzzled by what they say is their 15-year-old’s removal from the Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH), though the
local office for the social protection programme is insisting that the teen has been receiving benefits.
Having relocated from Cheesefield district in Linstead, St Catherine, to West Prospect just outside of Bog Walk, more than two years ago, the relatives of Charlemont High School student Vaniecia Burke say, since then, she has not received PATH benefits.
Her aunt Venlonge Robinson told the Jamaica Observer last Monday during a visit to the community that scores of letters sent to the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labour and Social Security have proven unsuccessful in getting Vaniecia back on the programme.
The teen became a PATH beneficiary in primary school, her aunt said, but she was allegedly arbitrarily removed from the programme after the family relocated in 2018, despite no improvement in their living condition.
Robinson also shared that Charlemont High’s administration had written to the education ministry on the teen’s behalf. A response was received informing them that reverification would have to take place before Vaniecia could be readmitted to the programme.
A commitment was reportedly made to send officers to the new residence to “reverify her living condition”.
“Since 2018 she hasn’t been receiving any benefits and I’m sadly disturbed. I have been working with her mother to get stuff, because in this pandemic the Government has been doing a lot to assist PATH students and she has not gotten anything,” Robinson told the Observer.
“We’ve gone to the school to get a letter from Charlemont to take to the local PATH office, and they’re saying that they need to reverify, but none of that has been done. She has not gotten anything at all. For over two years now we’ve been trying [with] many letters and many phone calls, and no one is coming out to check,” she said.
However, the family was recently contacted by the local PATH office and told that Vaniecia was never taken off the programme, and that records indicate that she has been receiving benefits.
The family is, however, contesting this and questioning the management of the Government-run programme.
Vaniecia, who started grade 10 last Monday, has had to go without lunch countless times in the past, her aunt claimed.
She said, too, on many occasions the child has left home with only bus fare.
Teachers who are aware of her situation would sometimes provide lunch, her aunt said.
With the novel coronavirus pandemic raging and online classes now mandatory across the island, the schoolgirl’s mother, Annabell Robinson, has had to borrow a laptop for her to participate in classes.
But her participation is usually shortlived, as her access to lessons ends whenever her mother, a housekeeper, leaves for work.
Vaniecia uses data from her mother’s phone to create a hotspot connection.
“It is really an in-need case. We are not trying to deceive anybody by trying to get her back on the programme. As you can see, it’s a crazy miracle work for us to get one of the Government houses and we’re still in need. So she desperately needs this. I’m not just her aunt, I’m her godmother [too], so it’s also my responsibility to see to it that she gets the help she needs.
“I buy a lot of uniforms. I buy a lot of books. Even now I’m sending to go buy books for her to do her thing online. So that’s how she has been getting help. Her mom is a single parent and she is not the only child. So this is really needed, and it’s just for them to take the time and come and reverify.
“So we are puzzled as to why she was removed and why it is taking so long to get her back on the programme. We have an intimacy with hunger at times,” Robinson said, adding that the next course of action is to “lobby the prime minister”.