Call for support for disabled mother

The Vanuatu Widow’s Association has called for support for a mother with disability in Central Tanna.

Calm Haven Disability and the Widow’s Association made the call after discovering a mother with disability in Central Tanna who could not walk and whose nine-year-old son had to skip school to take care of her.

John Bill Iamul, Vice President of both Calm Haven Disability and the Widow’s Association and the Area Administrator for Central Tanna, made the call.

He says the association has built the family a house but now that the mother is growing older, a better house is needed.

“The house the family is sleeping in now has many holes and they are cold every night,” Mr Iamul said.

Since the association discovered them, the family has asked for donations of blankets, an appeal which Tanna’s Blue Cave company has already responded to.

And, now Blue Cave is helping to raise money to build the family a better permanent house.

Mr Iamul says Mocklyne Paul, the woman with disability, had an operation after giving birth to her son Pierre, and after that operation she could not walk.

He says Mrs Paul’s relatives have moved her family around and they are now living with an old man who is also disabled in a home where conditions are very poor.

Mr Iamul says the young Pierre, who is in Year Four, takes responsibility for the care of his mum in the home.

“It is hard to witness the boy cooking, washing and take his mum to the toilet and pushing her around in a wheelchair if she needs to go to the clinic,” Mr Iamul said.

He says every morning, the boy wakes-up and cooks for himself and his mum and make sure everything is there for his mum before he goes to school.

“Sometime if his mum really needs him, he can be absent from school for two weeks,” he said.

Mr Iamul says the association is now looking at raising an amount of VT500,000 to build the family a new home.