A Parang Food In­clu­sive fundrais­er will be held on Sat­ur­day to as­sist the Cere­bral Pal­sy So­ci­ety.

Stephan Reis Pro­duc­tions has stepped in with help from cor­po­rate T&T and gen­er­ous cit­i­zens to host the event from 5 pm to mid­night at Un­der­cov­er in San­ta Cruz, and the pro­ceeds will go to the So­ci­ety.

Reis de­cid­ed to lend a hand af­ter the So­ci­ety was thrust in­to the pub­lic sphere in Oc­to­ber when at least 30 of its mem­bers were left with­out a place to ac­cess com­pre­hen­sive ther­a­py af­ter they were asked to va­cate the Na­tion­al En­rich­ment Cen­tre, Carlsen Field, cen­tral Trinidad, which is be­ing re­fur­bished.

The group, head­ed by Philip Metivi­er, has been clam­our­ing for a per­ma­nent space for its mem­bers for years. How­ev­er, they have been do­nat­ed a build­ing in Ch­agua­nas through the gen­eros­i­ty of Price Club.

"Hope­ful­ly in the near fu­ture this build­ing will be out­fit­ted so that we can pro­vide both phys­i­cal and speech ther­a­py," the So­ci­ety stat­ed.

"The fu­ture plan is to be able to have a space where we can pro­vide all forms of ther­a­py to those liv­ing with Cere­bral Pal­sy."

Oth­er is­sues raised by the So­ci­ety in­clude schools that are not equipped/fur­nished for chil­dren with Cere­bral Pal­sy, no train­ing of hos­pi­tal staff to deal with Cere­bral Pal­sy pa­tients, and the high cost of ther­a­py.

The Cere­bral Pal­sy So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go is an NGO that was formed in 1993 by par­ents of chil­dren with the dis­or­der. The ex­ec­u­tive team is made up of Metivi­er (Pres­i­dent), Chris Ram­dass (Vice Pres­i­dent), Tri­cia King (Sec­re­tary), and Jody Jagdis (Trea­sur­er).

The group caters to peo­ple liv­ing with Cere­bral Pal­sy–from ba­bies to adults–and has ap­prox­i­mate­ly 100 mem­bers.

Pro­vid­ing sup­port and ser­vices to peo­ple liv­ing with Cere­bral Pal­sy and their care­givers (toi­letries and food ham­pers), fund­ing and pro­vid­ing pro­grammes (phys­i­cal ther­a­py, speech ther­a­py) for those with the dis­or­der, ed­u­cat­ing, pro­vid­ing re­sources and ad­vo­cat­ing for those liv­ing with Cere­bral Pal­sy are some of the things that the So­ci­ety does.

As part of his out­reach, Reis has sup­port­ed a gen­der-based vi­o­lence run and helped with book lists for school chil­dren.

About the fundrais­er

The parang fundrais­er will fea­ture The Lara Broth­ers and Leon Coldero, Ami­gos De La Mu­si­ca, Ar­mo­nias Mag­nifi­cas, Chris Ro­jas, Del Toro, Dad­dy Chi­nee, Nin­ja, Em­manuel Joseph, and Wen­dell Mc Burnie, DJs Stu­dio 9, KGB and Se­lec­ta Rome.

To sup­port the event you can check out on­line@trin­ba­go­events.com or call 345-3380, 730-2588, 759-8504 and 372-8620.

You can find the Cere­bral Pal­sy So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go on Face­book or call Philip Metivi­er at 716-0116 and Jody Jagdis at 768-2914.