Yes. I know your head is still steaming, in the post-September 7 reboot.
Here is how you can cool down, love up and show your true republican stripes and remind yourself that country comes first.
This has nothing, mercifully, to do with politics, ethnicity, or religion and everything to do with what’s in your wallets and your lovely rosy hearts.
Want to change the world? Help a child. Sounds corny but you know it’s true. My favourite charitable organisation The Children’s Ark has a big one for you—an opportunity to do good and feel right, without lifting a straw.
On October 23, at the Hyatt, the non-profit organisation is hosting a fundraiser dinner for about 500 guests. I could tell you about the cocktail reception followed by a three-course menu which includes two glasses of wine, and the top-drawer entertainment (David Bereaux, 3 Canal and Natalia Dopwell). And that the President, who is the patron of the organisation, will be there. Or that there will be a door prize.
But the best part of the story is that the October event will raise money for a child trafficking awareness and education project to be launched next year. Oh yes, child trafficking is a reality; no head-in-the-sand escape for you, dear readers. So here is how you can be a good human being. The Ark is inviting corporate citizens (don’t you love that description?) to sponsor tables of 10 guests at the cost of $10,000 a table. Stop shrieking. It takes money to rescue the future. Individuals and civic organisations can also leap right in with their cheque books too.
Every penny goes where it is supposed to. The Ark has no secretary, office, or employees. The president is Simone de la Bastide, whose husband former Chief Justice Michael de la Bastide is also on the board. The other directors include former First Lady Dr Jean Ramjohn Richards, attorney Vicki Assevero Mottley; businesswoman Dhisha Moorjani; and ob-gyn Dr K Achong-Low, who is the vice president. The projects they have successfully undertaken are really worthwhile causes—a new $600,000 30-seater bus for Goodwill Industries; books and educational tools for a pre-school in Beetham; equipment for hippotherapy camps in Tobago and in Diego Martin; and a sports clinic at Hell Yard, Beetham, in conjunction with the Daren Ganga Foundation, with able support from the police and army.
Here’s a heartwarmer: at one Saturday sports session, a little boy named Akim peeped through a fence and asked what was taking place. Told it was a cricket and football clinic, he grew even more curious. His eyes sparkled. “That is Daren Ganga there?” he asked. Yes, indeed. “I in!” he cried, and through the fence he climbed, into the clinic and has been making good batting progress since.
We have to be our own heroes. Grown-ups have got things mucked up a bit but we can put the experience to work, and try to do better tomorrow. See you in October looking your philanthropic best.