Spend­ing time as­sist­ing com­mu­ni­ties, peo­ple in need and con­tribut­ing to your coun­try is no easy feat as the ladies in charge of Women in Ac­tion for the Needy and Des­ti­tute (Wand) know well.

It is a task as de­mand­ing as it is re­ward­ing and the di­rec­tors of Wand, led by Jan Ryan, have com­mit­ted to do­ing work that will mat­ter for a life­time.

From build­ing a drug cen­tre for women, to pro­vid­ing com­put­ers for com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre in 15 com­mu­ni­ties, Wand has spent the past 17 years of its ex­is­tence ded­i­cat­ed to projects which can make long-term im­pacts to those in need.

In an in­ter­view, Ryan and part of her team met with the Sun­day Guardian to share some of Wand's goals, its work, and its plans for the fu­ture.

Wand is a reg­is­tered char­i­ta­ble or­gan­i­sa­tion found­ed in 1988 by four women who de­cid­ed to pool their re­sources to as­sist the less for­tu­nate. Ryan was one of those women.

To­day, the group has been in­cor­po­rat­ed as a non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion (NGO) and the board con­sists of ten mem­bers and six as­so­ciates.

It was formed as an NGO to em­pow­er women and chil­dren who are mar­gin­alised and need as­sis­tance to learn a trade or skill. The or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so as­sists one or two very needy or dis­abled in­di­vid­u­als on an an­nu­al ba­sis, the first of which was with the pur­chase of a sewing ma­chine and build­ing ma­te­ri­als to as­sist one in­di­vid­ual and her fam­i­ly.

Wand's first ini­tia­tive was in 1999 when it re­fur­bished and equipped the All In One Child De­vel­op­ment Cen­tre, a school in a very de­pressed and crime-rid­den area.

Wand was able to raise funds from pri­vate in­di­vid­u­als, while the rest was pro­vid­ed by the British High Com­mis­sion. HRH Prince Charles sub­se­quent­ly went to the cen­tre in 2000 dur­ing his state vis­it to T&T.

"The group is now do­ing work in 15 com­mu­ni­ties, with its most re­cent project fo­cused on equip­ping com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres with com­put­ers," Ryan said dur­ing the in­ter­view.

"We went out to each com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre. We toured each one in­clud­ing the one in To­ba­go, Ma­yaro, Pa­lo Seco, Laven­tille, all of those. We spent an en­tire day do­ing field work to en­sure they were se­cure, ac­tive, and we met with com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers to de­ter­mine that they would be good re­cip­i­ents," said di­rec­tor, Nicole Galt.

"Every project we do must be sus­tain­able. Every­thing we do will be run smooth­ly, to us that's very im­por­tant."

This par­tic­u­lar project start­ed in Mor­vant through a grant from the Cana­di­an Em­bassy and a do­na­tion of 84 com­put­ers from a pri­vate sec­tor com­pa­ny.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion's next fo­cus will be build­ing a tran­si­tion home for clients who com­plete their ses­sions at the drug re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and treat­ment cen­tre for women, which was al­so built by the women of Wand.

"We have done the plans and we are just wait­ing for some gen­er­ous donors to as­sist us with that. We have in­vest­ed our mon­ey in it in the con­sul­ta­tion phase. We are at a point where we need the lo­cal busi­ness­men to come on board to as­sist us in that area," Ryan said, adding that the group some­times ben­e­fit­ed from in­ter­na­tion­al donors.

The group does not use any mon­ey for its day-to-day op­er­a­tions, the di­rec­tors in­stead ab­sorb the costs per­son­al­ly.

"We want all of the do­na­tions we get to go to­ward the projects and we are very trans­par­ent. We en­sure donors re­ceive re­ports and up­dates of all projects," said trea­sur­er Michal An­drew.

"We are very trans­par­ent with our ac­count­ing. When we tell a donor we are go­ing to do X we do it."

To­day, the or­gan­i­sa­tion has an­oth­er fo­cus, one con­cerned with stretch­ing its im­pact across gen­er­a­tions and en­sur­ing that fu­ture gen­er­a­tions of T&T can ben­e­fit from Wand's in­ter­ven­tions.

As Wand pre­pares for the fu­ture, Ryan said the most im­por­tant thing was en­sur­ing that their or­gan­i­sa­tion does not die af­ter they have re­tired.

"The first thing is that the younger peo­ple will come on board and even­tu­al­ly take our po­si­tion.

"We will feel com­fort­able in our minds that when we hand it over it is to a group that en­sures it is sus­tain­able and will not die. We have in­vest­ed a lot of time and ef­fort and we don't want it to go down the road," Ryan said.

It is why the di­rec­tors are groom­ing as­so­ciate mem­bers, younger women with a pas­sion for Wand's pur­pose, to one day be re­spon­si­ble for the or­gan­i­sa­tion's fu­ture.

Two of those women are Kristin Chis­elko and So­raya Khan, who have ac­tive­ly con­tributed to fund rais­ing and char­i­ty ef­forts for the group.

The two said it was their ex­pe­ri­ence that young peo­ple were very in­ter­est­ed in com­mu­ni­ty work and in giv­ing back through char­i­ta­ble en­deav­ours.

"You have to give back and play your part, you have to pay it for­ward and it is best when you can join with like-mind­ed in­di­vid­u­als to help a greater cause," said Chis­elko.