IT MATTERS TO MARIA: Unemployed mum in limbo

It’s not about me!

That was the cry from Petal Puckerin, who says she has been turned down by the Welfare Department from receiving assistance for her three Barbadian-born children because she herself is a Guyanese.

The 26-year-old has been struggling for the past year since her Barbadian husband, Dwayne Puckerin, passed away.

She explained that following his death, she was living with her mother but moved out after they had a disagreement.

The unemployed mother explained that before she moved out to live at a house which her mother is constructing she went to the Welfare Department and the Child Care Board asking for help in supporting her children.

“The welfare said they cannot give me anything because I am not Barbadian and I went to the Child Care Board about getting the children placed in a Government nursery but they said they could not help me.”

Her children are eight, two and 11 months.

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