Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor–News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

In May, Aval­on Gill took a bold step to­wards ad­vanc­ing women’s rights in T&T. She reg­is­tered Her Lega­cy, Her Foun­da­tion, a non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion, ded­i­cat­ed to ad­vo­cat­ing for poli­cies, gov­ern­ment ini­tia­tives and pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tor pro­grammes to meet the spe­cif­ic needs of women across the coun­try.

Gill’s jour­ney has called for re­silience, adapt­abil­i­ty, and strong sense of pur­pose. Now, with near­ly two decades of ad­min­is­tra­tive ex­pe­ri­ence un­der her belt, she is aim­ing to share those char­ac­ter­is­tics with the women of T&T who need it the most. Re­cent­ly, she sat down with the Women’s Em­pow­er­ment (WE) Mag­a­zine to dis­cuss her new NGO and what led her to be­come an ad­vo­cate for women’s rights.

Q. You start­ed your pro­fes­sion­al jour­ney in the pub­lic sec­tor be­fore mov­ing in­to cor­po­rate ad­min­is­tra­tion. What lessons from those ear­ly years still guide you to­day?

A. My ear­ly pro­fes­sion­al ex­pe­ri­ence taught me the val­ue of pa­tience and clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion. The bu­reau­cra­cy of the pub­lic sec­tor can be chal­leng­ing, but it in­stils dis­ci­pline through stan­dard­ised pro­ce­dures and deep­ened my ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the process. Tran­si­tion­ing in­to the pri­vate sec­tor el­e­vat­ed my ef­fi­cien­cy and shaped me to be more re­sults ori­ent­ed. To­day, I am guid­ed by the be­lief that the jour­ney can be even more re­ward­ing than the des­ti­na­tion.

Q. Her Lega­cy, Her Foun­da­tion (HLHF) was launched in May 2025. What spe­cif­ic gap or need did you see that in­spired you to cre­ate it?

A. I want­ed to cre­ate a foun­da­tion along­side like-mind­ed women to shape a mis­sion that re­flect­ed not on­ly my voice, but the needs of many. Her Lega­cy, Her Foun­da­tion is not sim­ply here to fill a gap. As long as there is crime, and crimes against women, chil­dren and men, there will al­ways be a need for us to work to­geth­er and find so­lu­tions. While the foun­da­tion’s main fo­cus is sup­port­ing women, some­times help­ing her means help­ing her son or her hus­band. Some­times it means pro­vid­ing a safe space or ad­vo­cat­ing for her rights. We are here to cre­ate a holis­tic space where women can heal, grow and em­pow­er one an­oth­er.

Q. How do you bal­ance your roles as wife, moth­er, stu­dent, and pro­fes­sion­al while lead­ing a na­tion­al non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion?

A. Bal­anc­ing these roles is a dai­ly act of in­ten­tion and grace. I make a point of get­ting up and get­ting dressed, no mat­ter the chal­lenges, as if my at­tire is my ar­mour and my faith in God is my weapon. I re­ly on plan­ning, set­ting bound­aries, and a strong sup­port sys­tem, es­pe­cial­ly my fam­i­ly. I am part of a com­mu­ni­ty, and I wear that every day like a badge of ho­n­our. My faith and pas­sion sus­tain me, even when the jug­gling act feels over­whelm­ing.

Q. Your path shift­ed from nurs­ing to ad­min­is­tra­tion. What did that ca­reer tran­si­tion teach you about adapt­abil­i­ty?

A. Change is in­evitable, right? Adapt­abil­i­ty is about growth. Nurs­ing gave me em­pa­thy and re­silience, while ad­min­is­tra­tion de­vel­oped my or­gan­i­sa­tion­al and lead­er­ship skills. I have grown with each step, and I am grate­ful for every mile­stone that has brought me to this point. I re­main open to new chal­lenges and con­tin­u­ous learn­ing.

Q. Can you share more about the safe spaces and home­work cen­tre you cre­at­ed be­fore found­ing HLHF, and how those ex­pe­ri­ences shaped the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s mis­sion?

A. Be­fore found­ing HLHF, I start­ed a home­work cen­tre to sup­port young boys in pri­ma­ry school with­in my com­mu­ni­ty. Many came from sin­gle moth­er house­holds or fam­i­lies with­out the re­sources to help with their school­work. This taught me the truth of the say­ing that it takes a vil­lage to raise a child. These ini­tia­tives sparked a larg­er vi­sion—to cre­ate a space where women can find com­mu­ni­ty, heal and grow. A space where a woman’s back­ground or cir­cum­stances do not di­vide us but in­stead high­light the beau­ty in our dif­fer­ences. Our space is not de­fined by walls, but by the build­ing of con­fi­dence, courage and pur­pose through the shar­ing of be­liefs, val­ues and truths.

Q. As HLHF ad­vo­cates for poli­cies tai­lored to women’s needs, what are the top three pol­i­cy ar­eas you be­lieve need ur­gent at­ten­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go?

A. Our lead­er­ship team has iden­ti­fied three ur­gent pri­or­i­ties. First, work­place poli­cies that sup­port moth­ers and care­givers, in­clud­ing flex­i­ble work­ing hours and ac­cess to child­care. Sec­ond, in­creased ac­cess to men­tal health ser­vices tai­lored to women’s spe­cif­ic needs. Third, stronger pro­tec­tions against gen­der-based vi­o­lence, along with com­pre­hen­sive sup­port sys­tems for sur­vivors.

Q. How has your ed­u­ca­tion jour­ney—from Barataria South Sec­ondary to UWI ROYTEC and be­yond—in­flu­enced your lead­er­ship style?

A. It is the group projects that stand out for me. We at­tend these in­sti­tu­tions to learn and ad­vance our­selves, but the so­cial as­pect ex­pos­es us to peo­ple of dif­fer­ent ages, back­grounds and cir­cum­stances. Shar­ing be­liefs, val­ues and per­spec­tives grad­u­al­ly shape you. I am peo­ple fo­cused, and re­sults dri­ven, fol­low­ing a trans­for­ma­tion­al lead­er­ship ap­proach. My ed­u­ca­tion jour­ney has in­stilled in me re­silience, dis­ci­pline and the val­ue of life­long learn­ing. I be­lieve suc­cess comes through growth, col­lab­o­ra­tion and view­ing chal­lenges as op­por­tu­ni­ties for im­prove­ment.

Q. Com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment has been a con­sis­tent theme in your life. What has been your most re­ward­ing mo­ment work­ing at the grass­roots lev­el?

A. One of the most re­ward­ing mo­ments has been en­gag­ing with women from all walks of life, hear­ing their sto­ries and un­der­stand­ing their chal­lenges and as­pi­ra­tions. These con­ver­sa­tions have re­in­forced for me and my lead­er­ship team the im­mense po­ten­tial that grass­roots work holds to em­pow­er women and trans­form lives. We are ea­ger to build on these con­nec­tions as we ex­pand our skills work­shops and oth­er pro­grammes to help women be­come con­fi­dent and in­de­pen­dent with­in their com­mu­ni­ties.

Q. What are the biggest chal­lenges you face in get­ting both gov­ern­ment and pri­vate sec­tor buy-in for women-fo­cused ini­tia­tives?

A. Chang­ing mind­sets is a ma­jor chal­lenge—mov­ing from con­ver­sa­tions to ac­tion and get­ting peo­ple to recog­nise that em­pow­er­ing women ben­e­fits both so­ci­ety and the econ­o­my. The Gov­ern­ment of­ten feels it is al­ready do­ing enough through min­istries such as Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices. The pri­vate sec­tor is split be­tween those who be­lieve such col­lab­o­ra­tion is not for them and those who al­ready have a long list of caus­es they sup­port. To­geth­er with my team, I re­ly on clear ev­i­dence of im­pact and un­wa­ver­ing de­ter­mi­na­tion to shift per­spec­tives.

Q. Look­ing ahead, what is your long-term vi­sion for HLHF in the next five to ten years?

A. We en­vi­sion HLHF as a lead­ing women’s ad­vo­ca­cy or­gan­i­sa­tion in the Caribbean, with ex­pand­ed re­gion­al part­ner­ships, re­search-based pol­i­cy in­flu­ence, and a net­work of re­source hubs across the coun­try. I see us with a ded­i­cat­ed fa­cil­i­ty to ac­com­mo­date and sup­port women in need. My hope is that every woman, re­gard­less of her back­ground, knows HLHF is a place of op­por­tu­ni­ty and em­pow­er­ment, and that through it, she leaves a lega­cy of love.