Starvation Vs Education?
?
I am sending this letter out to every newspaper and television channel I can contact in as many provinces as I can, as I am desperate to help a friend who truly needs it. Please get our story out there.
Starvation Vs Education??
If she knew then what she knows now maybe she would have just got herself in the family way back in high school, lived off our joke of a welfare system and not be contemplating suicide at this point.
How is it possible in a Country as great as Canada, a 30 something woman with a University degree and a government job can be so down and out that she is literally almost to the point of starvation and homelessness?
How is it possible that she works 2 jobs and still can not afford to put food in her own mouth? That she will never be able to buy a home, get married or start a family? These questions force me to lose sleep at night as she is one of my best friends and I am forced to listen to her cry every night because her student loan payments are literally stealing any light from the end of her tunnel!
It can not possibly sound reasonable to anyone out there that in a Country as rich as ours, in a Country as “free” as ours that a young woman should literally be driven to the edge of her sanity just to try to find a way to pay almost $1000…that’s right…I said ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS a MONTH towards her educational debts. That may not sound like a lot of money to some people reading this but for the majority of us out here this is an unattainable amount.
However if she had of just got pregnant at 17 she could have had the government pay for her to finish high school, pay for her child’s daycare, her bus pass, her clothing allowance and whatever else she may possibly need, but God forbid she went out and did things the right way, now she will be punished for the rest of her life.
This girl is the girl who would give the last five dollars she had to help someone else. She is always there for her family, her friends and her community. She is the epitome of a good citizen yet she can not even get a bank loan to consolidate all her student loans into one manageable payment because apparently our banks just assume she would turn around and declare bankruptcy the moment they gave it to her, since you can no longer declare bankruptcy on student loans themselves. At an interest rate of anywhere between 12-16% she can’t even pay the interest on her loan to even get near to paying the principle. She can not even get interest relief on the loans because she makes $125 dollars a month above their cutoff point. I told her to go into hiding like everyone else does, just find a way to disappear from the loan “sharks”. But alas she is a better person than I and actually wants to pay her debts to these faceless, heartless greed mongers.
This is a plea for help. A plea to ANYONE, whether it is thru donations or information that could help her. She has cashed in her life insurance policy, her RRSP’s and every bit of savings she ever had, to pay towards these loans and now I am afraid she no longer has any fight left in her. She has been to the MP’s office where they literally told her that they see the injustice in her plight but unfortunately there is nothing they can do for her. She has actually been told by a fellow employee at her government office that she would be better off dead!!?? What scares me is that I hear in her voice lately that she agrees with them. She has begged and pleaded with the student loan offices, even just to lower her payments and/or increase the time she has to pay them to no avail. She is up against a brick wall with no where left to turn.
I tell her that there has to be a way. I tell her the world is a just place and that good people deserve good things, and karma will prevail, and that Canada is a great Country made up of great people who reach out and help others in need when they ask for it. She has lost faith and is drowning, and even in the position she is in she still doesn’t think she deserves help over someone else. She didn’t want me to send this letter because she thinks there are people out there who are worse off then her. How much worse off does she have to be before someone will help her? Please don’t tell me she needs to be sleeping on a sidewalk or six feet under before help arrives. PLEASE. Help me….Help her. There has to be SOMETHING someone can do before she gives up.
Signed,
A friend who still has faith.
Michelle
This open post was written 9 months, 3 weeks ago | V/U/S: 126, 1, 2 | Edit Post | Leave a reply | Report Post
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