Abandoned by her mother at age nine and left to care for three younger siblings she later lost, Melanie Daniel endured a life of pain and tragedy. But she was determined to survive.
Today, at 45, Daniel is a successful businesswoman, operating her own hair salon in St James. Today she works with juvenile delinquents at the Youth Training Centre (YTC) and the Golden Grove Prison.
“Many of them have stories similar to mine. I try to show them the love and support I lacked while growing up.”
Daniel goes to the YTC and the Golden Grove Prison three Sundays a month with a team from her church, Destiny Worship Centre, to conduct a “pre-release” programme with the young inmates.
“We sit and talk with them and help them to socialise. We also tell them about God.
“I get healed hearing their stories, stories like mine. Many are from single parent homes.”
Daniel now has two grown children of her own and a good relationship with them but she is still healing.
“Three years ago, I got to know God and His unconditional love. The anger went away.”
She recalled her tragic life and her determination to break free.
“I became a woman at age nine. My mother would leave me and my two younger sisters and baby brother for five days at a time sometimes.
“We were staying at a woman’s home in James but I had to cook, wash and clean for my sisters and brothers and be like a mother to them.”
Daniel and her siblings were officially abandoned by her mother when she was nine.
“My mother had three sets of children with three different men and left us to go and live with one of my stepfathers.
“She sent us to live with our grandmother in Point Fortin.
“After a few years, grandma said she could no longer support my other siblings. I was kept and they left.”
The family split when her mother arranged for someone to adopt her two sisters and her brother went to live with the woman in St James.
“He ended up in prison. He recently came out.”
When her grandmother died, Daniel returned to Port-of-Spain to live with her mother, stepfather and their family. She did not stay there long. By 16 Daniel was pregnant and on her own.
“I went to live with my baby’s father. When I got pregnant a second time and I left him and went on my own.
“I did not want to do what my mother did.”
With sheer determination and her faith, Daniel built her hairdressing career and put back the pieces of her life together.
“By God’s grace, I have become a different person,” she said.