SAN­DRA L BLOOD

For­mer pri­ma­ry school teacher Leslie-Ann Jerome loved her job but re­alised God had a high­er pur­pose for her, so she re­signed af­ter serv­ing for two decades.

Jerome, who is from San Fer­nan­do and has a B.Ed in Spe­cial Ed­u­ca­tion, is an on­ly child who was just ten years old when she lost her moth­er and nev­er knew her fa­ther.

De­prived of the love and sta­bil­i­ty chil­dren need, she bat­tled feel­ings of hurt, anger and de­pres­sion.

As a stu­dent and lat­er, as a teacher, she no­ticed that some chil­dren were strug­gling to read and com­mu­ni­cate ef­fec­tive­ly. Of­ten, they were hu­mil­i­at­ed, pun­ished, and de­prived of op­por­tu­ni­ties, which led to them be­com­ing de­mo­ti­vat­ed, anx­ious, an­gry, and even vi­o­lent.

This both­ered Jerome and she was de­ter­mined not to let that hap­pen to her chil­dren, Liam and Au­ro­ra.
She start­ed read­ing to them and oth­er chil­dren. Still, she quick­ly dis­cov­ered that the cor­rect types of books were not avail­able at schools, so she im­pro­vised, ho­n­our­ing what she re­ceived from God to “cre­ate books and of­fer your­self on a wider and deep­er plane.”

Jerome quit her teach­ing job in 2023 and said she felt blessed for the ex­pe­ri­ences she gained dur­ing her stints at all-boys and all-girls schools.

“It af­ford­ed a clear and ef­fort­less fo­cus on the par­tic­u­lar gen­ders and easy iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of needs,” she ex­plained.

She wrote books aimed at in­spir­ing self-dis­cov­ery and growth in women and chil­dren and es­tab­lished a pro­gramme, Kid­pre­neur TT, to equip chil­dren with the tools they need to thrive in life and busi­ness.

Her books for women are Own Your Crown, and Be­com­ing Her: Step­ping In­to Trans­for­ma­tion Sea­son.
For chil­dren, Jerome wrote I Am A Kid­pre­neur, Con­fi­dent Me, I Know Who I Am, The Su­per­hero In Me and I Know My Su­per Pow­er!
Pri­mar­i­ly for preschool­ers, there is the colour-cod­ed book, Read With Me.

Jerome said chil­dren dis­play calm­ness, hap­pi­ness, less anx­i­ety and will­ing­ness to read, when they are ex­posed to books and their aca­d­e­m­ic stan­dards tend to im­prove.

A read­ing spe­cial­ist and em­pow­er­ment coach, she said she was mo­ti­vat­ed by how books helped her to sur­vive and rise above many chal­lenges.

“I read a lot!” she said.

“These books are more than an en­ter­tain­ment tool. They ed­u­cate, em­pow­er and ig­nite imag­i­na­tion. They are script­ed, de­signed, and man­u­fac­tured right in Trinidad and po­ten­tial read­ing stars will im­merse them­selves in fun char­ac­ters, sim­ple yet ef­fec­tive phon­ics, and sight words. The books are de­liv­ered to any part of the world.”

On May 3 from 1 pm to 2 pm, Jerome will be at NALIS, Port-of-Spain, read­ing her books in the Fam­i­ly Read­ing Cir­cle Fes­ti­val Edi­tion, one of the events at the Bo­cas Lit Fest.

For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion, Jerome can be con­tact­ed at lesliean­njerome@gmail.com.