The Net­work of NGOs of T&T for the Ad­vance­ment of Women has com­mend­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for her well thought-out and strate­gic choic­es in Cab­i­net ap­pointees, and par­tic­u­lar­ly wel­comes econ­o­mist Mary King and MP Ra­mona Ram­di­al to the Gen­der Af­fairs port­fo­lio. "We are grate­ful for Per­sad-Bisses­sar for demon­strat­ing that hers will be a gov­ern­ment that lis­tens in tak­ing aboard our sug­ges­tion the gen­der port­fo­lio be in­clud­ed in the Plan­ning Min­istry, and agrees on the need that all im­me­di­ate­ly set to work," said Dr Kris Ram­per­sad, in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions di­rec­tor of the Net­work in a news re­lease. Ram­per­sad said her or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so brings to the at­ten­tion of Per­sad-Bisses­sar, as the new chair­man of the Com­mon­wealth, the im­mi­nent Com­mon­wealth Women Af­fairs Min­is­ters Meet­ing to take place in Bar­ba­dos from Fri­day to June 9.

Caribbean Is­sues

The net­work of­fers to pro­vide a brief, at a meet­ing with new Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs Su­ruj Ram­bachan, on pri­or­i­ty is­sues re­lat­ed to the Caribbean. These in­clude mat­ters sur­round­ing the lo­ca­tion of the chair of the Com­mon­wealth Women's Net­work (CWN) to the Caribbean. Ram­per­sad said the net­work, a for­mer host of the CWN, had been in­volved in Com­mon­wealth meet­ings since its in­cep­tion, and served as the NGO host to the re­cent Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing in the T&T. Fur­ther, the net­work is seek­ing meet­ings with the new Min­is­ters of Cul­ture and For­eign Af­fairs on the use of in­ter­na­tion­al in­stru­ments with­in UN­ESCO, the Com­mon­wealth and the OAS for strength­en­ing the po­si­tion­ing of lo­cal cul­ture abroad.

The net­work said this had been a vast­ly ne­glect­ed area of in­ter­na­tion­al out­reach and of­ten the net­work had been the sole T&T voice at var­i­ous in­ter­na­tion­al fo­rums, rep­re­sent­ing T&T's cul­ture in these ar­eas. Ram­per­sad said: "Giv­en the net­work's view, all is­sues are gen­der is­sues, and gen­der is­sues are na­tion­al is­sues. Al­so on the net­work's pri­or­i­ty lists are au­di­ences with Min­is­ters of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, Chan­dresh Shar­ma and King to share our ex­per­tise in gen­der main­stream­ing and prepa­ra­tion of can­di­dates for the up­com­ing lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion." The or­gan­i­sa­tion is seek­ing an au­di­ence with Min­is­ter of Food Pro­duc­tion Vas­ant Bharath in de­vel­op­ing agri­cul­ture so as to ad­e­quate­ly ben­e­fit rur­al women and chil­dren.

It is al­so seek­ing a meet­ing with hold­ers of so­cial sec­tors' port­fo­lio, Dr Glen Ra­mad­hars­ingh and Nizam Baksh, to dis­cuss ways that would ben­e­fit the some two-thirds of women and chil­dren af­fect­ed by ne­glect of so­cial and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment. Ram­per­sad al­so ex­pressed con­cern that im­me­di­ate re­lief can be brought to thou­sands of women and chil­dren af­fect­ed by pres­sures of traf­fic morn­ing and evening by a fea­si­ble and af­ford­able "park and ride" sys­tem and called on new Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er to move quick­ly on al­le­vi­at­ing the phys­i­cal and men­tal toll of traf­fic on cit­i­zens.