Who is popular today?

United Way TT will celebrate its National Day of Caring 2023 on May 21. The theme of this year’s volunteer event is Show You Care Everywhere.
Speaking at the launch on Wednesday at the Marriott Bonvoy, Port of Spain, UWTT chairman Ian Benjamin said young people represent the best of the country and the region.
“In order to make progress, you have to keep moving forward.
"Covid19 was very hard for all of us; there isn’t anyone in this room who didn’t lose someone who was important to them. The young people lost time, time they’re not getting back.
"Our job is to improve what we can. We need to remember to support each other.
“United Way understands we’re not the largest organisation or group in the country and therefore we always start with collective working. We work with and alongside you to maximise our impact.
"Everyone can be a care ambassador, an individual who shows civic maturity, compassionate bigheartedness and does more than talk, but acts. Don’t lose sight of one thing: that people will be looking on, will see you, and hopefully be inspired to copy you. Imagine a TT where NDOC was a 364-day event.”
UWTT CEO Gail Sooknarine said 25 projects have been confirmed so far, and the hope is that more will come in after the launch.
“They’re throughout the country, in schools and community residencies. Companies sometimes take up their own projects, but we haven’t gotten a beach clean-up, a community clean-up, or a community garden project yet, where people want to do something like that. But people can do all of that as part of the National Day of Caring, and they can contact us at United Way.
“We act as project managers, so we get proposals from schools and from NGOs and from community residences asking for help in certain infrastructure projects and then we link them to companies. The companies usually bring out their employees, but also purchase whatever materials are required to do the activity, usually painting and clean-up.
"Then there are longer-term things where we have some companies (which) have adopted schools, sprucing up the environment. In going out to schools, some schools need a lot of help – other schools get quite a bit of help so they look quite decent, but there are other schools that really need some help.”
Southern Sales corporate social responsibility representative Brian Mohammed said the company appreciated being able to work with UWTT to build communities.
[caption id="attachment_1014186" align="alignnone" width="1024"] United Way TT board members, from leftm Mitchell De Silva, Ian Benjamin, Indira Omah-Maharaj, Gail Sooknarine, Ieyaz Ahamad, Don La Foucade with patron Zalayhar Hassanali. - Jeff Mayers[/caption]
“Our mission is building and contributing positive change to communities. Ninety per cent of our projects focus on children, and the outreach and volunteerism in our staff is tremendous. We will continue to support UWTT in all their endeavours.”
UWTT board member Mitchell De Silva, in launching the National Day of Caring, said the event was captured by a quote from Mother Teresa.
“'I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples.’ I believe that is the essence of our NDOC, it’s each individual doing a small thing that mushrooms into something bigger and results in the change that we want to see, or creates the country we want to see for ourselves and for our young people.”
The group was entertained by drummers from the Nelson Street Boys' RC School.
They presented a token to Zalayhar Hassanali, widow of TT's second president, Noor Hassanali, who turned 92 on Wednesday. She said she would be celebrating her birthday all month.
 
The post United Way TT launches National Day of Caring appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.