Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice of­fi­cer Vanes­sa Ra­moutar trad­ed her uni­form for a Mrs Claus out­fit this week­end as she brought joy to dozens of chil­dren at the launch of the Movanzi Em­pow­er­ment Youth Club and its first an­nu­al Christ­mas treat.

Ac­com­pa­nied by San­ta Claus and the Grinch, Ra­moutar helped spread Christ­mas cheer in Re­form Vil­lage, Gas­par­il­lo, on Sat­ur­day, dis­trib­ut­ing toys and sweets to scores of ex­cit­ed chil­dren. A TTPS bus even pro­vid­ed free trans­port to some of the chil­dren.

Ra­moutar, who is as­signed to the Mara­bel­la Po­lice Sta­tion, said the youth club was cre­at­ed to pro­vide a safe and sup­port­ive en­vi­ron­ment for chil­dren, par­tic­u­lar­ly those fac­ing chal­lenges such as ne­glect and bul­ly­ing.

“God has giv­en me a vi­sion, and I de­cid­ed as a moth­er, a woman po­lice, al­so as a grand­mom, I have this great pas­sion for chil­dren, I would love to form youth clubs. To­day is the grand launch of our toy dri­ve with­in the com­mu­ni­ties of Tabaquite, Williamsville, Ben Lomond, Re­form, Gas­par­il­lo, Em­ba­cadere, and Mara­bel­la on the line. With the help of every­one, our cor­po­rate spon­sors, I would love to help the chil­dren of our na­tion.”

She said her youth club will fo­cus on cul­tur­al, aca­d­e­m­ic, and so­cial ac­tiv­i­ties, aimed at em­pow­er­ing chil­dren and giv­ing them pos­i­tive guid­ance out­side of the class­room.

Ra­moutar said she hoped the ini­tia­tive un­der the slo­gan Qual­i­ty ed­u­ca­tion for a bet­ter na­tion, will bring hope to young peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly those who may feel down­trod­den or over­looked.

“Present­ly, we have a lot of chil­dren who are be­ing men­tal­ly abused, phys­i­cal­ly abused, and they just need some­one to speak with them and lis­ten to them. I be­lieve a lot of them stem from sin­gle par­ent­ing, where par­ents go out there to pro­vide for their chil­dren. The chil­dren are be­ing ne­glect­ed or un­su­per­vised, and I think be­cause of this, they feel left out, they feel un­car­ed for, and unloved. All they need is a lit­tle hope and to know that some­one is there to em­pow­er them.”

Ra­moutar in­tends to dis­trib­ute be­tween 600 and 1,000 toys through­out the fes­tive sea­son.