PARAS Ram has resorted to selling sasa brooms to try and provide for his family who live in a corrugated iron shack at Matavou settlement in Nadi.

Heavily dependent on social welfare assistance, the 53-year-old former sugarcane farm labourer has been plagued with health issues that make it harder for him to put food on the table.

“I have to sell these brooms and if I don’t, we won’t be able to survive the whole month,” he said.

“I get paid my monthly social welfare assistance but it’s not enough to take care of all of us.

“I am living with my wife and daughter and we depend a lot on that money to buy our food, but sometimes it runs out so I have to find other ways to find money.”

He said the new supply would be sold along the Queens Rd near Matavou settlement.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go and sell this.

“Most of the time, I will leave them on the side of the road and hope that someone stops to buy one.

“It’s been very hard over the past few weeks because very few people are stopping to buy brooms.”