Carisa Lee

Re­porter

Carisa.Lee@cnc3.co.tt

The Women in Ac­tion for the Needy and Des­ti­tute (WAND) Foun­da­tion has raised more than $500,000 in 2024 to as­sist the vul­ner­a­ble in this coun­try. This, pres­i­dent Aman­da Jar­dine said, ex­ceed­ed its half-a-mil­lion-dol­lar goal, and she aims to bring in more next year.

She made this com­ment dur­ing the an­nu­al WAND’s Fas­ci­nat­ing Christ­mas Lunch at the Hy­att Re­gency, Wright­son Road, Port of Spain, yes­ter­day.

“WAND com­mits 100 per cent of our con­tri­bu­tion to the needy, so every dol­lar giv­en goes where it needs to go,” Jar­dine said.

In the last 11 months, the foun­da­tion has host­ed three char­i­ta­ble events—Den­im and Di­a­monds, the Hole in WAND Char­i­ty Golf Tour­na­ment, and yes­ter­day’s lunch. Ac­cord­ing to the pres­i­dent, Den­im and Di­a­monds raised $188,000, while the golf tour­na­ment brought in $134,000.

Speak­ing to the lunch’s biggest turnout to date, Jar­dine shared where the mon­ey went. She said the foun­da­tion re­paired dam­aged win­dows, re­placed mos­qui­to nets, and re­placed all the cup­boards and clos­ets in all the chil­dren’s rooms at the Cou­va Chil­dren’s Home and Cri­sis Nurs­ery.

They al­so worked with the Caribbean Kids and Fam­i­lies Ther­a­py Or­gan­i­sa­tion (CK­FTO), which pro­vides a friend­ly and en­joy­able en­vi­ron­ment for chil­dren with a fo­cus on best ther­a­py prac­tices.

“We de­cid­ed to help them, and they got a build­ing up­stairs, so they moved all their ad­min up­stairs, and down­stairs we cre­at­ed new ther­a­py spaces for a host of ad­di­tion­al new chil­dren,” she said.

Jar­dine al­so an­nounced that the struc­tur­al work on the new wing at The Shel­ter, a do­mes­tic vi­o­lence non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion, will be com­plet­ed this week.

“The floors, ex­te­ri­or walls, stair­case, and roof are all com­plete and on sched­ule,” she said.

She an­tic­i­pates the project to be com­plet­ed soon.  Sharon Clark-Row­ley, wife of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, and Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Don­na Cox at­tend­ed.