The Na­tion­al Mus­lim Women’s Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NM­WOTT) pri­ma­ry ob­jec­tive is to fos­ter sis­ter­hood and pro­mote the ad­vance­ment of women in Trinidad and To­ba­go. In­cor­po­rat­ed over twen­ty years un­der the vi­sion­ary Fer­oza (Rose) Mo­hammed, to sup­port each oth­er and ed­u­cate all per­sons and their com­mu­ni­ties spir­i­tu­al­ly, so­cial­ly, and cul­tur­al­ly. With­in the sis­ter­hood, the val­ues of gra­cious­ness are up­held, and needs are at­tend­ed to com­pas­sion­ate­ly, in both good times and times of tri­al. This or­gan­i­sa­tion was formed not to change any­one’s be­lief but in­stead, to cre­ate an at­mos­phere of friend­ship, peace, love, and har­mo­ny.‘As we move fur­ther in­to the 21st cen­tu­ry, we wish to main­tain a vi­brant and dy­nam­ic or­gan­i­sa­tion with a close-knit Is­lam­ic sis­ter­hood. As Mus­lim women, we must take po­si­tions at the fore­front, as con­trib­u­tors to our so­ci­ety in every way. May God bless this or­gan­i­sa­tion, move us from strength to strength and keep us sol­id as a rock with uni­ty and har­mo­ny,” shared by the en­tire NM­WOTT ex­ec­u­tive. 

Food Se­cu­ri­ty Ini­tia­tive–25,000 seedlings dis­trib­uted 

Food se­cu­ri­ty isn’t just a ques­tion of the avail­abil­i­ty of food, nor of the fi­nan­cial re­sources to ac­cess it. Peo­ple must al­so have con­sis­tent ac­cess to qual­i­ty, nu­tri­tious foods to en­sure food se­cu­ri­ty. It is re­port­ed that “If women had the same ac­cess to agro-eco­nom­ic re­sources as men, agri­cul­tur­al and farm­ing pro­duc­tion would in­crease and we could feed ap­prox­i­mate­ly 150 mil­lion more peo­ple.” (FAO, 2021). The Na­tion­al Mus­lim Women’s Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go dis­trib­uted twen­ty-five thou­sand seedlings to schools to com­mem­o­rate World En­vi­ron­ment Day 2022. This is al­so part of our on­go­ing project, “Let’s Plant for Food Se­cu­ri­ty”. The ob­jec­tive of this project is to en­cour­age chil­dren to plant food, eat fresh lo­cal foods, share the food which is pro­duced as well as save mon­ey and re­duce the food im­port bill. We hope to make this a sus­tain­able project by con­tin­u­ing to en­cour­age the grow­ing of plants that pro­vide food and im­prove the health and well­ness of our com­mu­ni­ties.  

An­ti-bul­ly­ing cam­paign and em­pow­er­ing projects 

Bul­ly­ing is a re­al­i­ty for a con­sid­er­able pro­por­tion of ado­les­cents around the world and in Trinidad and To­ba­go, it is no dif­fer­ent. In 2017, we launched our cam­paign on an­ti-bul­ly­ing with “FACES of Kind­ness” which we pre­sent­ed to var­i­ous pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools. The ob­jec­tive of this project was to build self-es­teem, and arouse aware­ness of how acts of vi­o­lence that oc­cur at school or home can be re­port­ed and dealt with. 

To reach a wider cross-sec­tion of schools, in 2018, our ed­u­ca­tion­al sym­po­sium for post-SEA and Form One stu­dents was con­cep­tu­alised. Over 500 stu­dents at­tend­ed “Tran­si­tion­ing from Pri­ma­ry to Sec­ondary School” at SAPA, San Fer­nan­do. The stu­dents were treat­ed as dy­nam­ic per­form­ers and pre­sen­ters with pos­i­tive el­e­ments on man­ag­ing bul­ly­ing, steal­ing, fight­ing, ex­trem­ism, sub­stance abuse, and al­ter­na­tives to the norms.   

This project was a tremen­dous suc­cess and as a re­sult, in 2019, we host­ed over three hun­dred girls at yet an­oth­er em­pow­er­ing ses­sion “Just for Girls”. Top­ics de­liv­ered were: “You and Your Body”, “Eti­quette and Ta­ble Man­ners” and per­for­mances by Arts in Ac­tion and Girl Be Heard.   This year af­ter a three-year Covid break, we are ex­tend­ing this sym­po­sium at a more in­clu­sive lev­el, host­ing “Just for Boys” on 17th May 2023 at SAPA. 

Pro­tect­ing all fam­i­lies, and our chil­dren (boys and girls) against vi­o­lence is the path to­wards more peace­ful and in­clu­sive so­ci­eties, as called for by UN SDG 16 Peace, Jus­tice and Strong In­sti­tu­tions. To ful­ly re­al­ize their po­ten­tial, chil­dren re­quire a safe, nur­tur­ing, and in­clu­sive en­vi­ron­ment in which to grow, learn, thrive and suc­ceed. To­wards this de­sired out­come, the com­mit­ment of NM­WOTT is guar­an­teed.   

Mes­sage for Eid

Eid-ul-Fitr is one of the most revered fes­ti­vals for Mus­lims all over the world and com­mem­o­rates the end of the holy month of Ra­madan. A month of self-re­straint, piety, gen­eros­i­ty, and spir­i­tu­al strength.The Na­tion­al Mus­lim Women’s Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go wish­es that on this spe­cial day, you and your fam­i­ly be blessed by the grace of Almighty Al­lah with un­lim­it­ed joy, good health, pros­per­i­ty, and hap­pi­ness. We must re­mem­ber that Al­lah is al­ways with us, to guide and help us, in every step of life. De­spite the chal­lenges we face in our dai­ly lives, live a dai­ly life of kind­ness, com­pas­sion, and hu­mil­i­ty so we can make our so­ci­ety a bet­ter one.

Eid Mubarak 2023

Zeno­bia S Mo­hammed 

Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Mus­lim Women’s Or­gan­i­sa­tion of T&T 2021-2024