Every morn­ing at 10 am, her chil­dren, both bi­o­log­i­cal and the 2,020 oth­ers around the coun­try who she's laid claim to, say one prayer-the Our Fa­ther. They at­tend her meet­ings dressed in white, and when asked where they're from, they un­hesi­tat­ing­ly re­spond, "We are Miss Pas­call's chil­dren."No it's not a cult. In fact, it just might be one of the most pos­i­tive, life-en­hanc­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions in T&T.

Fight­ing crime­by chang­ing minds

Lu­ra Pas­call is the moth­er, founder and pres­i­dent of ROAT-Reach Out And Touch or­gan­i­sa­tion. One con­ver­sa­tion with this woman and you will re­alise that she's God sent. Her words are hum­ble and her lan­guage peace­ful.In 2005, she start­ed the or­gan­i­sa­tion with 14 young peo­ple, who she de­scribed as youths hin­dered by one prob­lem or an­oth­er. Some had dropped out of school and need­ed help. She told this small group of un­hap­py young peo­ple of her vi­sion, and to­geth­er they set­tled on an aim for the in­sti­tu­tion. To­day, that aim is to fight crime through chang­ing minds."We can do what we want, but if we don't change the minds of the young peo­ple, noth­ing will ever be suc­cess­ful," Pas­call stat­ed with con­vic­tion.She knows the rig­ors of life. In fact, as an adult with half a cen­tu­ry now be­hind her, she ad­mit­ted: "My child­hood was not a smooth one."

For this rea­son, she said, she need­ed to do some­thing to leave a lega­cy of her­self be­hind. Her three bi­o­log­i­cal chil­dren are all suc­cess­ful in fields as­so­ci­at­ed with med­i­cine and man­age­ment and for that she is very proud. It's not to say, how­ev­er, that her 2,020 oth­er chil­dren who re­side in Blan­chisseuse, Point Fortin, Mor­vant, Ari­ma, Tu­na­puna, Ma­yaro, Mal­abar, Beetham, San Juan, La Brea and Bel­mont do not make her proud every day.With the or­gan­i­sa­tion's theme-Liv­ing a Bal­anced Lifestyle-etched in­to the hearts and minds of each per­son in­volved, Pas­call proud­ly at­tests to the changes she's seen in the youths she's en­coun­tered over the years.

In­tro­duc­ing the Art and De­sign Lab

Her method to reach­ing out and touch­ing the of­ten puz­zled youth is in­cor­po­rat­ing a lis­ten­ing ear with art ex­er­cis­es. Af­ter se­cur­ing a loan in 2008 to fund her ini­tia­tive, Pas­call start­ed a pro­gramme out of the Tu­na­puna Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry school called the Art and De­sign Lab. There, on Fri­days be­tween the hours of 1 pm and 3 pm, she ex­e­cut­ed learn­ing through art.She said every sub­ject on the cur­ricu­lum was taught through art, and even­tu­al­ly she was able to get all stake­hold­ers at that in­sti­tu­tion in­volved. It was her pi­lot project. Since then, she has been able to at­tain the per­mis­sion of the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion to ex­e­cute the said pro­gramme at sev­er­al schools across the coun­try.She and oth­ers, who saw its re­sults first-hand, at­test­ed that the at­ti­tudes of the chil­dren in­volved in the pro­gramme changed dras­ti­cal­ly.

Proud­ly, she dis­closed that the sec­ond week of Sep­tem­ber had been marked for the ini­ti­a­tion of the Art and De­sign Lab at the Las Cuevas Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry school, Point Fortin Ju­nior Sec­ondary school, Sev­enth Day Ad­ven­tist pri­ma­ry school in San Juan, El Do­ra­do West Sec­ondary school and the Cen­te­nary Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry school, among many oth­ers. She said that the schools would fo­cus on vary­ing ob­jec­tives. The El Do­ra­do West Sec­ondary School will fo­cus on HIV and AIDS. Their artis­tic abil­i­ty will be on dis­play as they go through­out the coun­try in a car­a­van. They'll have to cre­ate posters, fly­ers, they'll do dance and dra­ma," she ex­plained, adding that while the core group would be made up of just 60 stu­dents, the en­tire school would be in­volved in one way or an­oth­er.

Pas­call al­so as­sured that noth­ing would be done with­out the in­put of the chil­dren's par­ents. With a back­ground in teach­ing, co-or­di­nat­ing, mar­ket­ing and even cus­tomer ser­vice, the La Brea na­tive as­sert­ed to be­ing very good at co-or­di­nat­ing pro­grammes."I know that God bless­es us with dif­fer­ent tal­ents. My tal­ent is reach out and touch," she said.ROAT re­cent­ly host­ed an art ex­hi­bi­tion, which Pas­call said was an op­por­tu­ni­ty to teach the chil­dren about sav­ing. She had formed an art club out of the Tu­na­puna Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School-sep­a­rate and apart from the project she'd ini­ti­at­ed. Dur­ing the va­ca­tion, she host­ed an art camp and hadthe chil­dren sign their work. She said it mo­ti­vat­ed them and made them proud.

But when it came to par­ents' in­volve­ment, she ad­mit­ted, it was some­what of a chal­lenge.But when par­ents came, Pas­call said, she gave them re­spon­si­bil­i­ties with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion-some­thing that con­tributed to a whole­some ef­fort be­tween par­ents, chil­dren and the or­gan­i­sa­tion. How­ev­er, it doesn't stop at par­ents."I in­vite every per­son who has a part to play in these chil­dren's lives-from the maxi dri­ver, to the la­dy in the par­lour, to the man in the side of the road who works nowhere but is al­ways dressed up. Those are the peo­ple who have the in­flu­ence in chil­dren," she as­sert­ed.In May of next year Lu­ra Pas­call's ROAT will have the ho­n­our of host­ing the Wash­er Woman fes­ti­val in Blan­chisseuse, where her "chil­dren" will pro­vide ser­vices in drum­ming, cook­ing and art. Her pride was un­mis­tak­able as she pro­fessed, "God has blessed me."

There is no doubt that there are fi­nan­cial chal­lenges to run­ning such a large scale op­er­a­tion as the Art and De­sign Lab, and she hopes that T&T will un­der­stand the ben­e­fits of its con­tri­bu­tion to so­ci­ety and help."If we con­tin­ue this, we'll have less youths go­ing to prison. We're look­ing for re­tired teach­ers who may have a lit­tle time to get in­volved and we would re­al­ly love to get a space to work from. I've been do­ing this from my house, imag­ine what we could do if we had a build­ing for the pur­pose," she hint­ed.The Caribbean Bank's un­sung hero of 2009, Lu­ra Pas­call said she will not stop, no mat­ter the chal­lenges.With a big heart and a pray­ing soul, there is no doubt that her lega­cy has al­ready been made.

Any­one wish­ing to as­sist ROAT can con­tact Pas­call at 678-9948.