‘Help take care of my son’ – The Namibian
AMOS Manda of Walvis Bay has been struggling to make ends meet after losing his job last month.
The 33-year-old man says he was already in rent arrears and now has to worry how to explain to his landlord that he cannot pay rent for another month.
Manda says he especially has sleepless nights when he thinks about feeding and clothing his seven-year-old son who is now in Grade 2 at the town.
The frustration led him to seek help on social media last week, where he asked good Samaritans to help him.
“Anyone to stay with my son at Walvis Bay please? You are free to contact me until I get a job,” he wrote.
“It is a painful thing to do. Nobody really wants to give away his or her child, but I need help to take care of him. He needs clothes because he is growing, and he also needs to eat. How do I do that, if I am unemployed? I want my son to continue having a good education and thus want to keep him at Walvis Bay,” he told The Namibian on Friday when asked whether he had considered sending his son to the north to stay with family for a while.
He said he feels bad seeing his son crying when there is no food in the house, which often makes him think of walking into the sea at Independence Beach, which is about five-minutes walk from where he stays.
He has worked for the hospitality industry for the past 10 years, but everything started going down because of the Covid-19 situation.
He was retrenched from a hotel at Swakopmund and decided to look for a job at Walvis Bay.
After working for a local restaurant for about two years, he was fired on 18 January, following a fallout with his employer.
“I tried looking for a job, but people kept coming back to me, saying I was unsuccessful and that they had found someone else. I suspect people at my [old] workplace are discouraging others to hire me. I am asking them to allow me to look for a job, and for others to give me a chance and know me for themselves. I just need a job to take care of my son and pay rent. I am worried that I might be put out of my rented room at the end of the month. Where will we go?” he said.
His former boss Erastus Nandjendja, however, denies that he is discouraging people from hiring him.
“The only person who asked about him was my friend who owns a bar, and I told him that hiring him will be an issue between the two of them. I do not know about other companies. How will I just feel good when someone is unemployed and especially has a child,” he asked.
Manda said he discussed the issue with his son’s 26-year-old mother before posting on social media, and she just started crying, because she had no solution.
Her mother is old and not in a condition to take care of a child, while she is struggling to make ends meet at a nursing school where she is studying.