MONTEGO BAY, St James – Dealt a bad hand in life, 43-year-old Carol Williams is hoping to secure a better future for her seven children living in deplorable conditions in the Mud Valley, Retirement community in St James.

Williams, a mother of 10, is appealing for the public’s assistance in not only acquiring toiletries and basic necessities for her children, but to land a job to better provide for them.

“Getting a job is the most important thing right now. That is what I want, but I don’t have a skill…I’m not really bright and I cannot read well, so if I could get a little work to clean an office or even to do housekeeping, I would really appreciate that,” Williams told the Jamaica Observer West during a recent visit to her home.

“I would also really love a little help with some food kind most of the time,” she added.

The mother said that though she tries to make a living by selling on the streets of Montego Bay, she has not had much luck in that business.

“I do a little selling on the streets. I sell juice at the stop light in Westgate, but sometimes business is really slow so I don’t make a lot of money. But mi try do likkle construction work too when I get called, so I’ll carry cement and blocks,” said Williams, who lives with seven of her children in the ramshackle house.

The fathers of her children, she told the Observer West, rarely provide monetary assistance, so the family has had to make do with what they have. The sad reality, Williams said, has caused the children to fall behind academically.

“They don’t have a tablet to do their schoolwork. But I have a phone, so that is what they have to take turns to use to do their schoolwork. I just try to help them one at a time,” said Williams.

“They’ll miss school some Fridays or other days when I really and truly don’t have the money to send them. Sometimes I only have the taxi fare, so I’ll go and talk to the principal to see if they can get some food. Sometimes they’ll provide breakfast for them and when they don’t get a cooked meal, they will get a snack, like bun and cheese.”

Williams pointed out that the nearby Granville All-Age School has been instrumental in the lives of her children as the school’s administration assists the family by providing meals to two of her younger children who attend the school, whenever she falls short.

“I really appreciate it because that helped my older children when they were going to school,” said Williams.

A lingering fear, the mother told the Observer West, is that her five-year-old daughter may also be dealt a bad hand in life, repeating the family’s unfortunate dilemma.

Blaming her financial situation, Williams said the child has never been enrolled in the school system even though she is of the age.

“I really want my daughter to go to school because she should have started from the age of three, so she can know things. She is now five years old and should be heading into grade one,” said the mother.

“When dem put her in grade one she nah go know anything so mi have to mek her repeat. She didn’t even go to infant school. I didn’t have the money and the likkle money mi have, did have to send the rest to school,” Williams added.

Explaining that she has tried to improve the living conditions of her family, Williams told the Observer West that she bought cement blocks and sand to build a house to live in, but the recent heavy rainfall experienced in St James unfortunately washed away the sand. The money to complete the planned renovation project is also nowhere to be found, she said.

The family of eight currently lives in a dilapidated one-bedroom board dwelling which sits atop cement blocks. The mother told the Observer West that “everywhere in the house wet up once it starts to rain”.

As the board structure starts to fall apart, the mother yet again is forced to get creative with the little resources she has by using sheets of zinc and old boards to keep her family dry.

Their bathroom and kitchen are outside of the shack. This, she explained, means that the family spends the majority of their time carrying out their personal activities “out in the yard.”

“I feel shy about asking for help because of how people deal with me and the current state of my house. But I really need it,” said a seemingly desperate Williams.