Dr Safeeya Mo­hammed

guardian.wemagazine@gmail.com

The Ro­tary Club of Mar­aval re­cent­ly host­ed its Bridger­ton-themed high tea event for its 30th An­niver­sary Cel­e­bra­tion and Fundrais­er at Mille Fleurs. Ex­trav­a­gant­ly adorned in Re­gency-era fash­ion, pa­trons were sur­round­ed by mag­nif­i­cent art­work on ex­hib­it and those on auc­tion from lo­cal artists. They were ser­e­nad­ed by the T&T Youth Phil­har­mon­ic or­ches­tra.

The club, through its col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Art So­ci­ety of T&T, cre­at­ed a spe­cial an­niver­sary cat­a­logue of art­work, fea­tur­ing works from Boscoe Hold­er, Pe­ter Shep­pard, Ro­tar­i­an Fitzroy Hoyte and a myr­i­ad of artists. Art pieces from the cat­a­logue are avail­able un­til the end of May for pur­chase.

Pa­trons were en­cour­aged to ex­plore the Re­gency era fash­ion and they did not dis­ap­point as many were con­sid­ered for best dressed! The win­ners were Oleisa Scott, Nicole Pol­lon­ais-Hen­ry, James De­v­ers and John Lewis.

The pro­ceeds of the event and a por­tion of the art sales go to­wards sup­port­ing the Club’s com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice projects with a fo­cus on spe­cial caus­es such as peace and women em­pow­er­ment.

Among its sig­na­ture projects, the Club has al­so had a long re­la­tion­ship with sup­port­ing the prison com­mu­ni­ty. This first start­ed through the pro­vi­sion of eye test­ing and glass­es for the pris­on­ers at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison for over 20 years through an es­tab­lished op­tometrists team, re­peat do­na­tion of fem­i­nine hy­giene prod­ucts to the Women’s Prison and its up­com­ing ini­tia­tive to pro­vide con­flict res­o­lu­tion ser­vices to res­i­dents of the Women’s Prison.

Past pres­i­dents of the club Giselle Hold­er and Mar­cia Prince As­sam high­light­ed the Ro­tary or­gan­i­sa­tion’s fo­cus on “Ser­vice Above Self” and its re­newed com­mit­ment each year to con­tin­ue serv­ing the com­mu­ni­ty.