RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Five years ago, Meena Jadoo­nanan sur­vived paral­y­sis af­ter an ac­ci­dent. Grate­ful for a sec­ond chance, she has since ded­i­cat­ed her life to up­lift­ing un­der­priv­i­leged fam­i­lies and giv­ing hope to strug­gling sin­gle moth­ers.

With her mea­gre sav­ings, she es­tab­lished A Touch of Joy Foun­da­tion, a life­line that now sup­ports hun­dreds of fam­i­lies across T&T. Many are sin­gle-par­ent house­holds.

With sup­port from her sis­ter, Mala Jadoo­nanan, and friends Az­iz Khan, Bryan Boodram, and Adisha Noel-Cyrus, Jadoo­nanan has not on­ly pro­vid­ed school sup­plies, food ham­pers, and san­i­tary es­sen­tials but has al­so em­pow­ered young women to launch small busi­ness­es, cre­at­ing path­ways to self-suf­fi­cien­cy.

De­spite her hum­ble job at the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion, Jadoo­nanan spends her week­ends de­liv­er­ing aid, build­ing glob­al net­works, and turn­ing her pas­sion for kind­ness in­to a force for change.

Jadoo­nanan said her path was not an easy one, but the love and sup­port she re­ceived from her team has made all the dif­fer­ence.

“My sis­ter and I learnt a lot from our late moth­er, Sub­bas Jadoo­nanan. We al­ways be­lieve that small acts of kind­ness can have a pro­found im­pact, es­pe­cial­ly on those fac­ing dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances,” she ex­plained.

As a young girl, Jadoo­nanan said she wit­nessed her moth­er’s self­less acts, a woman who be­lieved that no one should go hun­gry.

“My moth­er was al­ways ready to lend a hand, es­pe­cial­ly when it came to pro­vid­ing meals to fam­i­lies in need. She nev­er turned any­one away, al­ways find­ing a way to of­fer help,” Jadoo­nanan re­called. “Her gen­eros­i­ty and com­pas­sion left a last­ing im­pres­sion on me, shap­ing my be­lief that true ful­fil­ment comes from serv­ing oth­ers.”

Re­call­ing her trau­ma, Jadoo­nanan said her near-death ex­pe­ri­ence changed her life.

“I was walk­ing along Pen­i­tence Street in San Fer­nan­do when I slipped and fell. I suf­fered se­ri­ous in­juries that led doc­tors to fear I might be paral­ysed. I over­heard the doc­tors talk­ing about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of be­ing paral­ysed, but by the grace of God, I made a full re­cov­ery,” she re­called.

“That mo­ment was a wake-up call for me. I re­alised life is frag­ile, and I knew I had been giv­en a sec­ond chance for a rea­son.”

The ex­pe­ri­ence be­came the cat­a­lyst for her foun­da­tion’s cre­ation. “I felt a strong call­ing to do some­thing mean­ing­ful, to give back and spread hope to those who need­ed it the most,” she ex­plained.

Jadoo­nanan said since its in­cep­tion, A Touch of Joy Foun­da­tion has reached count­less in­di­vid­u­als, from the el­der­ly to strug­gling chil­dren, pro­vid­ing food, emo­tion­al sup­port, and ed­u­ca­tion­al re­sources.

One of the foun­da­tion’s key ini­tia­tives, the Dress to Im­press pro­gramme, equips in­di­vid­u­als with the tools they need to suc­ceed in the work­force, of­fer­ing in­ter­view out­fits, ré­sumé as­sis­tance, and busi­ness train­ing.

Jadoo­nanan said their Small Busi­ness Man­age­ment and Home Farm­ing Ed­u­ca­tion Pro­gramme em­pow­ers in­di­vid­u­als to start small busi­ness­es or es­tab­lish home gar­dens us­ing lo­cal­ly avail­able ma­te­ri­als.

“We’ve seen peo­ple in re­mote ar­eas liv­ing in dire con­di­tions—un­safe hous­ing, lim­it­ed ac­cess to ba­sic ne­ces­si­ties like san­i­tary nap­kins, and lit­tle to no means of eco­nom­ic in­de­pen­dence,” Jadoo­nanan re­vealed.

“But through our pro­grammes, we’ve been able to pro­vide some of the most ba­sic re­sources, help­ing fam­i­lies thrive and be­come self-suf­fi­cient.”

In one par­tic­u­lar­ly touch­ing sto­ry, a moth­er strug­gling to feed her chil­dren reached out to the foun­da­tion when they were sur­viv­ing on rice alone.

Through Jadoo­nanan’s pro­gramme, the moth­er re­ceived food sup­plies and was even giv­en the re­sources to start a kitchen gar­den.

“Not on­ly did we pro­vide food, but we helped her ap­ply for grants and taught her how to turn her gar­den in­to a sus­tain­able source of in­come,” Jadoo­nanan said. “To­day, she’s not just sur­viv­ing but thriv­ing.”

The foun­da­tion’s work, how­ev­er, is not with­out its chal­lenges. Jadoo­nanan ad­mit­ted that se­cur­ing enough do­na­tions to meet the grow­ing de­mand for sup­port is an on­go­ing strug­gle.

De­spite this, she re­mains un­de­terred. “We all con­tribute by do­nat­ing a por­tion of our salaries to keep the foun­da­tion run­ning,” she said. “When re­sources are tight, it’s the com­mit­ment of our team and the sup­port of the com­mu­ni­ty that keep us go­ing.”

She said some­times the work is dis­cour­ag­ing.

“But then I see the grat­i­tude I see in the eyes of those we help, the smiles on the chil­dren’s faces; that’s what fu­els my de­ter­mi­na­tion. Every small act of kind­ness makes a dif­fer­ence, and I know that I am not alone in this mis­sion,” she added.

Look­ing ahead, Jadoo­nanan said she re­mains com­mit­ted to ex­pand­ing the foun­da­tion’s reach and con­tin­u­ing the work her moth­er start­ed. Through in­ter­na­tion­al net­works and lo­cal col­lab­o­ra­tions, she has been able to spread the word about A Touch of Joy Foun­da­tion, rais­ing aware­ness and se­cur­ing ad­di­tion­al sup­port from busi­ness­es and in­di­vid­u­als who be­lieve in her vi­sion.

But for Jadoo­nanan, the most im­por­tant thing is not the scale of the sup­port but the im­pact it has on the lives of those who need it most. “Through our foun­da­tion, my goal is to up­lift and em­pow­er oth­ers, re­mind­ing them that even in chal­leng­ing times, they are not alone,” she says with qui­et de­ter­mi­na­tion. “As long as I have the abil­i­ty to bring joy, hope, and sup­port, I will con­tin­ue mov­ing for­ward.”

Any­one want­i­ng to reach Jadoo­nanan can call 479-7761, 777-8507 or 729-1387.