bmo­bile has an­nounced that they have part­nered with thir­teen Chil­dren Home across Trinidad and To­ba­go in its con­tin­ued sup­port for the ed­u­ca­tion of the na­tion’s chil­dren. De­tails fol­low in this press re­lease from bmo­bile:

bmo­bile re­cent­ly part­nered with thir­teen Chil­dren Homes across Trinidad and To­ba­go in or­der to con­tribute to the con­tin­ued ed­u­ca­tion of some of the na­tion’s young peo­ple who need sup­port the most. The Foun­da­tion's Book Bud­dies pro­gramme tra­di­tion­al­ly pro­vides books and school sup­plies for the stu­dents of the Homes. How­ev­er, it has adapt­ed since 2020 in or­der to con­tin­ue its con­tri­bu­tion to­wards the chil­dren’s school sup­plies by way of a mon­e­tary con­tri­bu­tion in­stead.

The on­ly tru­ly lo­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tions so­lu­tion provider has ac­tive­ly en­sured that many stu­dents re­mained con­nect­ed with vir­tu­al class­es in their pro­cure­ment and con­tri­bu­tion of smart tablets and Wi-Fi con­nec­tiv­i­ty in 2020. How­ev­er, they al­so recog­nise that school text­books, sto­ry­books and an­cil­lary ma­te­ri­als re­main a much-need­ed re­source for stu­dents. The de­ci­sion to do­nate mon­e­tar­i­ly was al­so well-timed for many homes who could not fundraise ac­tive­ly in the past eigh­teen months. The thir­teen ben­e­fi­cia­ry homes in 2021 in­clude St. Do­minic's Chil­dren's Home, Cre­do Foun­da­tion for Jus­tice (For Cre­do Boys and Sophia Girls), Rain­bow Res­cue, Joshua House, Raf­fa House, Vishok Bha­van, Is­lam­ic Home for Chil­dren, Mar­i­an House, Fer­n­dean's Place Chil­dren's Home, Mar­garet Kistow Chil­dren's Home, Syl­phil Home In Love - To­ba­go, Am­ic­a­House and Cyril Ross Home.

Ger­ard Coop­er, TSTT's Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Shared Ser­vices, not­ed the com­pa­ny's pride in the long run­ning pro­gramme, "While the last two years im­pact­ed us deeply as it did for all house­holds across T&T, we re­main deeply com­mit­ted to the stel­lar work that takes place every day at these Chil­dren Homes across T&T. We not on­ly sup­port the pas­sion­ate care­givers but al­so these amaz­ing, tal­ent­ed and lov­ing chil­dren and teenagers for whom we hope to sup­port with this con­tri­bu­tion. I am proud of their hard work, the work of those who ad­min­is­trate and man­age these homes as well as our team at bmo­bile who put in the ex­tra work to en­sure that Book Bud­dies not on­ly con­tin­ues, but adapts and grows too," he added.

Suzanne Phillip-Jack of The Syl­phil of Home in Love in To­ba­go wel­comed the do­na­tion. The Home has been en­gaged in com­plet­ing an ex­ten­sion that would ac­com­mo­date two iso­la­tion rooms for boys and girls. "We are tak­ing an ex­tra pre­cau­tion to have iso­la­tion rooms should we need it and this do­na­tion would as­sist us in this re­gard this year," Phillip-Jack added. The Home has ac­tive­ly been en­gaged with thir­teen stu­dents, re­cent­ly adding the re­sources of a psy­chol­o­gist to2work with the stu­dents. They con­tin­ue to seek in­ter­est­ed vol­un­teers and part­ners to as­sist in their work in­clud­ing ex­pan­sions to their avail­able non-ed­u­ca­tion­al books. "The pan­dem­ic has ham­pered us from fundrais­ing as we did with our walkathon last year, so any as­sis­tance is wel­come!" Phillip-Jack not­ed.

In Gas­par­il­lo, Trinidad, Don­na Ali was just re­cent­ly named Pres­i­dent of the Ex­ec­u­tive Board that over­sees the Is­lam­ic Home for Chil­dren. She al­so wel­comes the do­na­tion un­der chal­leng­ing times. "The build­ing we are in, which was orig­i­nal­ly do­nat­ed is now over thir­ty years old and has need­ed some ma­jor re­pairs for some time, so this do­na­tion comes at the best time pos­si­ble," she high­light­ed. The Home is cur­rent­ly un­der­go­ing re­pairs to the roof and ceil­ing and now falls di­rect­ly un­der the Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty. "Right now, we have twelve chil­dren rang­ing from 9-17years of age and they have al­so been hap­pi­ly ben­e­fit­ting from the do­na­tion of de­vices by bmo­bile to as­sist in their stud­ies and school­ing," she re­called. The Home ac­tive­ly seeks as­sis­tance in adding life to its out­door area, which cur­rent­ly on­ly has one swing. Due to COVID-19 pre­cau­tions, this out­door space has be­come the main space for the wards in their care to en­joy free time.

The Cyril Ross Chil­dren's Home was es­tab­lished in 1994 as The Cyril Ross Nurs­ery. There are cur­rent­ly eleven chil­dren at the Home, rang­ing from 3 - 24 years of age. San­dra Sta­ple­ton, Man­ag­er for the Home, point­ed out that the home has a range of stu­dents who ex­cel in many non aca­d­e­m­ic ar­eas rang­ing from gym­nas­tics to mu­si­cal arts, in­clud­ing steel pan, drums and dance. "There are many, many costs out­side of school­ing so we are al­ways grate­ful for any con­tri­bu­tion. There are fees re­lat­ed to trans­porta­tion, med­ical and clin­ic ap­point­ments and more. We wel­come this do­na­tion by bmo­bile which we will put to­wards school ne­ces­si­ties," she not­ed. The Home al­so seeks to be li­censed by De­cem­ber 2021 and com­plete work on a new build­ing they will tran­si­tion to in 2022.

The bmo­bile Foun­da­tion’s Book Bud­dies pro­gramme is ad­min­is­trat­ed by em­ploy­ees of the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions provider for over a decade. Each year em­ploy­ees com­mit and en­sure that stu­dents from Chil­dren Homes across Trinidad and To­ba­go are equipped with the nec­es­sary school sup­plies at the be­gin­ning of the school year by pur­chas­ing items out­lined in the book lists. Each year ap­prox­i­mate­ly 150 chil­dren are as­sist­ed.