Desperate mom cries out for help Seeks job, assistance to raise her children

As September shines a spotlight on mental health awareness, 29-year-old mother Kerrian Nevers is opening up about the mental toll of struggling to provide for her three children, while battling homelessness, unemployment and the cost of childcare.

Nevers recently took to social media to share a video appealing for help, saying she had reached a point where she could no longer remain silent about her struggles.

“I’m in St Catherine at the moment, I don’t know where I will be next, because I got evicted. Mi have to move because the lady say she wants the place so mi currently a look place,” she said. This eviction is not her first; she said she has been moving from place to place for years, and it only got worse after leaving what she said was an abusive relationship.

“Mi lose everything being in that relationship. My family dem nuh want deal with me. Mi lose mi work and mi did haffi depend pon him,” she said. “A run mi run weh when mi have the last baby, eight months old when mi leff and go pon mi own.”

Since then, Nevers said she has bounced around several communities, including Papine St Andrew, and Mandeville, Manchester.

“I’ve bounced around a lot, I have been thrown out and been all over the place. I was so tired because I didn’t have no form of help nor stability,” she said.

Determined to create a better life for her children, Nevers moved to Spanish Town, where she enrolled two of them in school and pursued training in cosmetology.

“It was hard because I had to do everything by myself, getting them ready for school and daycare then I would go classes and pick them up back. It was hectic but I did it and got my cosmetologist and make-up certification, then my permit, in 2025,” she said.

She tried several ways to make money, including selling wigs, crochet caps, eyelashes and cakes, before eventually opening her own business in June 2025. However, mounting household expenses and the cost of operating the business proved too much.

“I do everything fi mek life and nothing nuh work,” she said.

By the end of last September, she was forced to close the business.

“I wasn’t getting the support to keep it afloat.”

Nevers later worked selling fruits with a friend and then took a job at a bar, but the hours did not work with her children’s schooling. Today, she takes day work when available and sometimes helps at parties or in bars to earn money.

“I can’t afford a daycare. Is $26,000 weekly for the three kids,” she said.

Nevers said making the social media video was a desperate attempt to find a way forward.

“I was thinking that I don’t have nobody, I have nowhere to turn. I decided that I can’t just sit down silent because mi deh a mi last and nowhere to turn. Mi nuh have nothing fi lose fi ask fi help. Just do it and done,” she said.

“Mi just want some stability with the children and a good job. I am willing to work and start back my business, it’s just that mi can’t manoeuvre the daycare fees and bills to reach a point where I can do it by myself. Mi really need help with that.”

Despite her circumstances, Nevers urged other struggling parents not to give up.

“Focus on your children, yourself and what it is that you want to achieve in life. No matter how much you feel down and feel like you want to give up, keep pushing and try to find a way. If you can’t find a way, then pray. God will make a way or give you ideas.”