She is confident that she can make a difference in the lives of the country's most impoverished citizens and dismisses rumours that she’s paid by any political entity. T&T knows her as “Delilah,” the woman who appeared on Ian Alleyne’s Crime Watch on CNC3 over a scamming incident with a man named “Trevor,” but her real name is Nekisha Byron.
Byron has highlighted the poverty that exists for dozens of single, battered and molested women living in rural areas. She finds those who are willing to tell their stories, records them on her smartphone, loads the video on her page, and gets assistance from good samaritans. She has over 15,000 likes on her Facebook page-Delilah.
Byron, who lives in Point Fortin, said she recalled seeing herself on television and was shocked that people were so quick to judge and “pull me down.” She admitted she made a mistake for having a drink with “Trevor.” She said it was easier to pull women down than to build them up. “I could remember watching Ian Alleyne talk about me and I said to my husband, ‘Yuh know, this man is something else. When I was living in the car with my seven children out of the programme, the Government did not broadcast me as that.
“They didn’t put me up to get help, but to bring down a woman for one mistake she make by going by a man to drink was all over the world.” On August 5, the Sunday Guardian met with Byron who ventured to Lady Hailes in San Fernando into a depressed squatting community next to the Roodal Cemetery, alongside Hatters Pan Yard.
There she was begging the residents to walk with her through a labyrinth of shacks which only they seemed to know the way around. Armed with only her mobile phone, she ventured through the maze, calling out to residents on the rainy afternoon.
Who is Byron?
Byron, a tall, thick woman with a powerful voice, described herself as a poor woman with seven children who’s faced hardships. She was the main witness in the murder of SRP Steve Douglas who was shot dead at Mc Shine Lands, Laventille, on October 21, 2005. She and her family were in the Witness Protection Programme but in 2008 were discharged. Byron had made allegations of assault against police officers in the programme.
In May 2008, she appeared on the front page of another newspaper, pleading for help. Byron, who was 23 at the time and pregnant with her seventh child, spoke out at a political meeting at Warren Road in Jack Warner’s Chaguanas West constituency. Also at that meeting was former Tabaquite MP Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj.
In 2010, she was in the news again saying she was living on handouts and wanted a new identity for she and her family. Now, 31-year-old Byron is turning a new leaf and is no longer fearful for her life. She is calling on all impoverished and suffering women “to let their voices be heard.” “I too am poor and going through a lot of pain and suffering and hardships and if nobody takes a stand, then no body will ever do it.
She said she has been using a $10,000 compensation which her husband received for an injury on the job to rent a car to visit families and also buy them groceries. Up to the time of the interview, she had $2,000. And that had to be used to pay a maxi-taxi and print tees for a gathering she intended to host last week.
Byron said, “This is not no PNM, UNC, ILP, NAR, no nothing. “I am not getting a dollar from nobody. This is just me and my phone helping and voicing the poor people.”
Too much poverty
Her first story was recorded in Guapo about two months ago. Byron said she got up one morning and “some spirit” came to her with an instruction “to go find the woman.” The stories have touched her core, but she will not stop until they receive proper care and support. “I can’t stop and I won't stop until every one of my stories gets justice, help, homes and counselling,” she said.
“So I say, you know, what…if God wants me to do this, I will do it,” she said. Every day she gets stronger after meeting with the women who have either been sexually abused, beaten or abandoned by their children's fathers. Byron said, “I did not expect this to go the way it is going now. This is a shock to me. I was expecting less poverty.
“I did not know people living in dirt house and in galvanise shed.” If help is not forthcoming the way she wants, Byron is prepared to turn her home into a shelter. She said, “If it is my room alone, I will do that.” “It will happen. There are generous people out there who will help.” Byron said she shifts through donations and separates items according to each family’s needs.
However, she delivers food hampers to those who speak out and said she “gives equally.” Byron said no one is willing to meet with her to discuss the issues affecting the women. “If I am a female prime minister in this country, and I am seeing these videos, I would have come out already.
“I am a woman, a mother, a wife and the prime minister as leader, hearing the people crying out from hunger, pain and sorrow and she sitting on a throne and she ain’t come down?” Since June, Byron has visited close to over two dozen women.