Ex-Caroni worker wife gets house from Habitat

Vashti Singh-Debideen was moved to tears yesterday morning when she recalled her many sleepless nights spent worrying whether she would have been able to provide for her family following the death of her husband, Dharmendra Debideen in 2010.

“I didn’t think this would be possible,” Singh-Debideen said, adding, “this means a great deal where we can be a family and don’t have to move around.” “When my husband died, to acquire the land was very hard and sometimes I would lie down in bed and start to worry about how I was going to get the finances to purchase the land,” she said.

Singh-Debideen was full of praise for Habitat for Humanity and the NGC for making her dream come true and recalled that approximately 30 volunteers had painted the entire house in one day’s time.

And her two children, Jerome, 11, and Jessica, nine, in the audience, repeated that the family did not have to move anymore as they now had their own bedrooms and small yard to play in.

Meanwhile, Habitat Capital Campaign Cabinet chairman, Ronald Harford, said yesterday’s key handing over ceremony had “re-energised” him to continue to raise funds for the non-governmental organisation.

“You can’t build a society unless you provide shelter for your people,” he said, adding that NGC had pledged to contribute $1 million dollars yearly for the construction of homes over the next three years.

Also addressing the ceremony was NGC president, Mark Loquan, who observed that NGC had partnered with Habitat to construct three new houses for three single- parent families while also supplying construction materials for ten families to complete their homes.

“Possession of a home empowers the homeowner and endows her and her family with dignity, pride and hope,” he said.

Singh-Debideen was also presented with a mango tree, which was planted by her two children in the front yard and a Bible.