Please help Isabella start school online, Tableland father asks

Tableland father Ryan Abdool's only wish is for his six-year-old daughter to have the chance to learn online with her classmates.

But two accidents within the last four years have limited his ability to meet all the needs of his child.

Abdool uses a wheelchair and lives with his daughter Isabella and wife Macy Sooklal, who does not work outside the home.

They need an electronic device for Isabella for online school.

Abdool said he was putting aside his pride and is asking anyone who can help by donating a laptop or tablet so his daughter can be given that opportunity.

“If I have to go by the school to collect work, I will have to hire a car, and this is money I don’t have," he explained. "I am begging anyone out there please, please if you have a tablet or laptop that you could give to my little girl I would be more than grateful for that. All she needs is a chance in life.”

Speaking to Newsday at the family's home at North Trace, Hindustan, Tableland, fighting back tears, he recalled how his life had changed on September 21, 2016.

"I was the type of man who was always able to buy what his family needs and wants. Now today I am struggling and barely surviving on a disability grant. I never pictured this to be my life.”

Abdool said he was on his way home from work when his car began to smoke, it ran off the road and crashed and he was thrown out.

“Doctors told me that I was paralysed from my waist down. When I heard that all I could think about was not being able to run and play with my baby girl.”

Isabella was two at that time.

Abdool had surgery and left hospital that October.

“I was sent home in cast. I was in a lot of pain.

"All the strain was on my wife. She had to take care of me and Isabella. She is really a strong woman.”

Four months later the house caved in on them during a storm. Sooklal was able to run out of the house with their daughter before the house collapsed.

“I was not so lucky. It was too late for me. So there I was on the bed in a cast and I could only watch as the ceiling came down on me.”

The house was destroyed, but a few months later, through the Self Help Commission, the family built a new wooden house in the same area.

Doctors had given Abdool a year to live.

“At that point, I thought that was the end for me. But I survived again. I suffered head, spine, and neck injuries and still I am alive. I know God was not ready for me. I don’t know how long I have again in this world.

"But I want my daughter to be given a chance. A chance to have an education.”

He takes it upon himself to help teach his daughter every day.

“I will never be able to walk again, I know this. But she is my strength not to give up on life. Her mother and I take turns each day giving her schoolwork from her books.”

Isabella is a first-year infant student. Abdool does not have a phone and cannot afford one.

Anyone willing to help the family can contact his mother-in-law Sherry Sooklal at 305-2247.