Dr Safeeya Mo­hammed

guardian.wemagazine@gmail.com

Sun­dress San­dals and Shades (SSAS), the unique­ly themed con­cept aimed at cel­e­brat­ing women, is set to present the sec­ond an­nu­al in­stal­ment of the event in Trinidad and To­ba­go! The event has been held an­nu­al­ly in Mi­a­mi since 2017.

SSAS rep­re­sents every­thing beau­ti­ful about a woman, her beau­ty in­side and out, her pas­sions, her strengths, her abil­i­ty to nur­ture life and the love she so fierce­ly ex­hibits for her fam­i­ly.

Cindy Thomas, a Mi­a­mi-based event pro­mot­er, is lead­ing the SSAS team in the ef­fort to pro­duce a suc­cess­ful and well-thought-out event that will ex­ceed pa­trons’ ex­pec­ta­tions. Thomas has as­sem­bled a di­verse team of fe­male pro­fes­sion­als who are com­mit­ted to pro­vide women with the op­por­tu­ni­ty to cel­e­brate and be cel­e­brat­ed, on this day and be­yond. This dy­nam­ic team in­cludes Cindy Thomas, Char­li Grif­fith, Joel­la Corneille and Ar­i­anne Mitchell, role mod­els for women every­where. De­scribed as strong, de­ter­mined, and ac­com­plished women us­ing their skills and plat­form to make a dif­fer­ence in the world.

Gen­e­sis of SSAS

Thomas and her team shared in­ti­mate­ly in a sit down with WE. She ex­pe­ri­enced first-hand the chal­lenges of grow­ing up as a woman in a dis­ad­van­taged com­mu­ni­ty.

“I come from hum­ble be­gin­nings. I was born and raised in Laven­tille for the first 18 years of my life. I was in sur­vival mode for most of that time. Af­ter mi­grat­ing to the US in 2000, I was de­ter­mined to make a bet­ter life for my­self and my chil­dren. I man­aged to build my­self up as the lead­ing fe­male event pro­duc­er in the Caribbean Di­as­po­ra af­ter launch­ing my first event in 2016. 

Be­cause of my love for my fel­low women, I want­ed to in­tro­duce an event that strict­ly catered to women. To let them know they are not alone in their strug­gles and cre­ate a eu­phor­ic at­mos­phere where women can en­joy them­selves while be­ing em­pow­ered.

“Fun­ny sto­ry, I came up with the name SSAS af­ter my sig­nif­i­cant oth­er at the time de­cid­ed to take me to brunch one day. I came out­side dressed in some jeans and acute lit­tle cropped top. He looked at me with dis­ap­point­ment in his eyes and said, ‘Beau­ti­ful do you mind wear­ing a sun­dress?’ So, I an­noy­ing­ly agreed to change and with a lit­tle SSASY at­ti­tude I pre­sent­ed my­self in a sun­dress, still a bit an­noyed at the au­dac­i­ty of him to ask me to change, I said, ‘Are you sat­is­fied, sun­dress san­dals and shades,’ flip­ping my sun­glass­es on a bit of an at­ti­tude. As soon as the words came out of my mouth light bulbs went off all over. The vi­sion for the event came fast and fu­ri­ous and I talked about the con­cept all through our brunch date. Thus, SSAS was born!”

The dy­nam­ic team be­hind SSAS ex­plained that “a sun­dress is the ul­ti­mate state­ment piece! It adorns a woman in the splen­dour of who she is and re­in­forces the fact that she is a queen in every as­pect of her life.”

SSAS pri­ori­tise the well­be­ing of women

SSAS INC is now a reg­is­tered or­gan­i­sa­tion that em­pow­ers women and bring aware­ness to women’s is­sues. Thomas is al­so a strong be­liev­er in giv­ing back to her com­mu­ni­ty, and the event is ac­tive­ly col­lab­o­rat­ing with sev­er­al char­i­ta­ble or­gan­i­sa­tions.

In 2022, the in­au­gur­al event at­tract­ed more than 400 guests who gave rav­ing re­views. One of the many goals of this event, is to make a pos­i­tive im­pact on the health and well­be­ing of the women of T&T. As such, the dy­nam­ic team be­hind SSAS is con­tribut­ing part pro­ceeds to or­gan­i­sa­tions that sup­port cer­vi­cal and breast can­cer aware­ness, screen­ing and treat­ment name­ly, the Ayan­na S. Dyette Foun­da­tion and the Pink Hi­bis­cus.

The sec­ond an­nu­al in­stal­ment of this event is sched­uled for Sun­day Ju­ly 30 at the scenic, La Soledad Es­tate, Mara­cas, St. Joseph, fea­tur­ing en­ter­tain­ment from top lo­cal artistes and DJs, en­gag­ing and em­pow­er­ing speech­es from lead­ing women per­son­al­i­ties, and dis­plays by fe­male-led or­gan­i­sa­tions, with the aim of pro­mot­ing their en­tre­pre­neur­ial ser­vices and prod­ucts, cre­at­ing im­pact lo­cal­ly and re­gion­al­ly.

“We want this event to be a cel­e­bra­tion of life,” said Thomas. “We want women to feel em­pow­ered about their health, re­mind them of the pow­er of their voice, come to­geth­er and have a great cel­e­bra­tion of sis­ter­hood.”

For more in­for­ma­tion on SSAS:

Face­book : Sun­dress San­dals and Shades Inc

In­sta­gram : @sun­dress_san­dals_shades

Email: joel­la­corneille@gmail.com

Phone: 760-7287 | 738-2928 | 310-3782