Cherisse Moe

Style met sub­stance on the red car­pet as 700 pa­trons, many dressed in themed red, gath­ered for the pre­miere of The Dev­il Wears Pra­da 2 at Movi­eTowne Port-of-Spain on April 30. The screen­ing dou­bled as a fundrais­er for the Shel­ter for Bat­tered Women and Chil­dren, blend­ing fash­ion with a cause that re­mains ur­gent in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

More than 33,000 do­mes­tic vi­o­lence re­ports were made be­tween 2010 and 2024, ac­cord­ing to CSO da­ta—a stark con­trast to the evening’s glam­our. One at­tendee told Guardian Me­dia she would not have missed the event for the world. “My moth­er sur­vived years of abuse. Our women de­serve much bet­ter than how they are be­ing treat­ed by the men in our so­ci­ety. Or­gan­i­sa­tions like The Shel­ter de­serve every cent and every bit of help they can get.”

Chair­man Col­in Mitchell said the pre­miere was de­signed to bring peo­ple to­geth­er while help­ing to cov­er the fa­cil­i­ty’s es­sen­tial over­head costs. “Funds go di­rect­ly to dai­ly op­er­a­tions—hous­ing, meals, and care—as well as coun­selling and em­pow­er­ment pro­grammes.”

Cor­po­rate sup­port al­so helped make the night a suc­cess. Si­mone Mar­tin-Sul­gan, Vice-Pres­i­dent and Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of Flow, not­ed that the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny as­sist­ed by pur­chas­ing 50 tick­ets and spon­sor­ing the pho­tog­ra­phy.

“As part of our gen­der based vi­o­lence aware­ness and ad­vo­ca­cy, we are pas­sion­ate about sup­port­ing the work of The Shel­ter for Bat­tered Women and Chil­dren,” she said. “Flow con­tin­ues to cham­pi­on pos­i­tive so­cial change and stand along­side or­gan­i­sa­tions work­ing tire­less­ly to pro­tect the most vul­ner­a­ble.”

De­spite re­ceiv­ing a gov­ern­ment sub­ven­tion of $7,500 per month, The Shel­ter’s op­er­a­tional costs re­main sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er.

“A ma­jor pri­or­i­ty this year is com­plet­ing and open­ing our new WAND wing, which is al­ready struc­tural­ly com­plete. This will more than dou­ble our res­i­dent in­take, al­low­ing us to sup­port sig­nif­i­cant­ly more women and chil­dren in need,” said Mitchell.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so fo­cus­es on re­cov­ery and de­vel­op­ment by of­fer­ing trau­ma-in­formed yo­ga and em­ploy­ing a full-time teacher to en­sure no child falls be­hind aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly. An ed­u­ca­tion pro­gramme is al­so be­ing de­vel­oped for younger res­i­dents to com­bine learn­ing with so­cial-emo­tion­al sup­port.

In a record­ed mes­sage be­fore the film, founder Di­ana Ma­habir-Wy­att re­flect­ed on The Shel­ter’s ear­ly days, re­call­ing when it op­er­at­ed with mat­tress­es on the floor be­fore re­ceiv­ing do­na­tions of beds and ba­sic house­hold items. A for­mer res­i­dent, who al­so spoke via a video record­ing, thanked Ma­habir-Wy­att for sav­ing her life.

“They nur­tured me. They fed me, they nursed me, they clothed me. I stayed there for six months un­til I was able to build a life for my­self. I’m very grate­ful. I came a long way.”

Mitchell not­ed that many cas­es of abuse re­main un­seen, and events like this help keep the is­sue in the pub­lic eye.

“At its core, our work is about trans­form­ing women and chil­dren from sur­vivors in­to thrivers — giv­ing them the safe­ty, sup­port, and op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­build their lives with dig­ni­ty and hope.”

On ar­rival, pa­trons were wel­comed with a com­pli­men­ta­ry glass of Cav­ic­chi­oli Pros­ec­co and posed for self­ies and pho­tographs be­fore set­tling in for a night of fash­ion, film and fundrais­ing.