The Eden Lodge Charitable Trust is seeing a noticeable rise in the number of children needing assistance as the new school year approaches.
Speaking on Wednesday during a news conference at the Cloister Bookstore, the Trust’s President and CEO Dwayne Grazette said initial plans catered for 525 children, but that number has now grown to nearly 600—a significant increase compared to last year. The event also marked the announcement of a donation of school supplies and $110 000 from the Sandy Lane Charitable Trust.
“When we did our first numbers for our proposals and stuff like that, we had 525 children seeking assistance. As we went along, we are now close to 600 . . . it was like about a 20 per cent increase in terms of persons who are seeking assistance and calling,” Grazette explained. “They don’t only seek assistance for the uniforms and stuff like that, but we also have a lunch grant programme where when the children go into school, we provide lunch at the different canteens for the children.”
Grazette noted that although there is a school meals service for many secondary students, some from disadvantaged families avoid using it for fear of being bullied.
“You have a school meals service and stuff like that that will provide lunches to so many secondary school children, but we see that a lot of them because they are from disadvantaged families, they don’t want to go take the lunch because they are also afraid of being bullied at school. So what we do is that we pay the school canteens and they go to the school canteens and collect the lunch like any other normal student because we always have to protect these children because there are other ramifications that come along with it when you expose these vulnerable kids,” he said.
The charity also sees its role as helping to prevent vulnerable children from falling prey to criminal influences.
“We do it because it’s easy for a drug man to help these children, and then use them as soldiers, right, [which would] increase the crime that we have in this country. Then we have our fathers . . . that we know are susceptible to crime and they want to go to rob somebody or something like that because they want to send the children to school and because their child mother harassing them and stuff like that. And there are about three or four cases that we intervene and stop something like that from happening.”
Trustee of the Sandy Lane Charitable Trust, Phillipa Challis, said the back-to-school period can be exciting for many, but remains a struggle for some families.
“I always love this time of year because it’s a fresh start for the children that we see around us, whether it’s going to a new school or starting a fresh year. But there are those children who need a fresh uniform or a pair of shoes to go to school in or as always the books. So whilst it might for some people be a very easy, exciting time, for other children it might be about turning up at school with having a shirt that’s too small or a [worn] pair of shoes.”
She recalled a particularly moving encounter from last year.
“Last year I had a parent who broke my heart, to be honest. She told me she only had five children; she only needed one pair of shoes because she’d actually managed to fill the gaps in the others and staple the soles of the shoes. That just broke my heart.”
Challis said their $110 000 donation to the Eden Lodge Youth Charitable Trust was part of a broader commitment.
“Our donation, $110 000 to the Eden Lodge Youth Charitable Trust, isn’t the only one . . . we do our own back-to-school [initiatives].”
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