Grow­ing Lead­ers foun­da­tion has def­i­nite­ly made an im­pact in Trinidad and To­ba­go. The foun­da­tion is a not-for-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion fo­cused on ed­u­cat­ing young chil­dren and help­ing them re­alise their true po­ten­tial. Sal­ly Ann Del­la Casa, dream­er-in-chief and lead tree shak­er-who was fea­tured in last Sun­day's Guardian-wants to spread her mes­sage through­out the world.

Na­pari­ma Boys Col­lege

Dr Michael Dowlath, prin­ci­pal

April 2012

"The pro­gramme un­doubt­ed­ly pro­vid­ed stu­dents with es­sen­tial life skills and knowl­edge which may have been omit­ted from the aca­d­e­m­ic cur­ricu­lum. It shows them hu­man­i­ty in every­day life, and pre­pares them for adult­hood and not just ex­am­i­na­tions. It is my hum­ble view that pro­grammes like this raise young men with morals and val­ues who have po­ten­tial to reach self-ac­tu­al­i­sa­tion and not just acad­e­mia."

Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies

Dr Noel Kalicha­ran

Au­gust 2011

"There are sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits to be gained from tak­ing part in the lead­er­ship pro­gramme and it is rec­om­mend­ed that as many schools as pos­si­ble seize the op­por­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in it."

Preysal Gov­ern­ment

Vashti Ali, prin­ci­pal

No­vem­ber 2011

"The in­ter­ac­tive style of the de­liv­ery made the pre­sen­ta­tion a love­ly one. The in­for­ma­tion pre­sent­ed was ben­e­fi­cial and rel­e­vant to all of those who had the priv­i­lege to at­tend. I rec­om­mend them high­ly as an or­gan­i­sa­tion of the high­est ca­pa­bil­i­ty and in­tegri­ty."

Robin Shar­ma

April 2012

"On be­half of Shar­ma Lead­er­ship In­ter­na­tion­al Inc, we are ex­cit­ed to be­gin our part­ner­ship with the Grow­ing Lead­ers Foun­da­tion...we are tru­ly con­fi­dent in the po­ten­tial im­pact of this al­liance."

An­gos­tu­ra

Di­ane Hen­der­son

April 2012

"Our so­ci­ety has so much neg­a­tiv­i­ty and the foun­da­tion's ex­er­cis­es have shown so many pos­i­tive and fun meth­ods to im­pact the younger ones pos­i­tive­ly. They are the fu­ture lead­ers...the fu­ture cor­po­rate. It is on­ly right that we nur­ture them and help form/im­pact the at­ti­tudes of our fu­ture ones."

Rain­bow Res­cue

April 2012

"There is ev­i­dence of pos­i­tive changes in some of the boys. For ex­am­ple, sev­er­al are us­ing their ini­tia­tives to as­sist with chores and oth­er tasks that need to be done at home. They are al­so demon­strat­ing more con­fi­dence, es­pe­cial­ly when ex­press­ing their views dur­ing fam­i­ly meet­ings."

YTC

Ju­ly 2011

"We have not­ed pos­i­tive changes in our charges who are priv­i­leged to be a part of an in­ter­ven­tion such as this."

Rep­sol

Hei­di Diquez

April 2012

"Grow­ing Lead­ers Foun­da­tion has giv­en Rep­sol the op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­gage our chil­dren and give them a "light up" in­to all the amaz­ing things they can do and can be by ex­plor­ing the won­der­ful hu­man be­ings that they al­ready are. Grow­ing Lead­ers al­so pro­vides us with sta­tis­ti­cal records by turn­ing in­to SMART da­ta, our vol­un­teers time. For Rep­sol this as­pect is es­sen­tial since it pro­vides an av­enue, not on­ly to mea­sure the im­pact of each con­tact hour, but al­so helps us im­prove our em­ploy­ees sat­is­fac­tion and self achieve­ment by know­ing that they have con­tributed to the trans­for­ma­tion of a child's fu­ture and help­ing them be­come lead­ers no mat­ter where they are stand­ing.

We con­sid­er Lead Up is the bind­ing tool that keeps the GL pro­gramme go­ing af­ter each les­son. It is a tool that if used ad­e­quate­ly by the teach­ers and the chil­dren, this can ef­fec­tive­ly bring to each home (to par­ents and sib­lings) a lit­tle bit of Grow­ing Lead­ers lessons to con­tin­ue the pos­i­tive im­pact ef­fect with­in the fam­i­lies."

Ria Ran­sun­dar

GLF vol­un­teer, co-or­di­na­tor

"We are cur­rent­ly im­pact­ing over 3,300 youths in over 68 schools. We have trained over 350 vol­un­teer teach­ers and we add ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 per month. We have part­nered with Ask Lead­er­ship and will be host­ing Ra­jesh Dur­bal in Trinidad and To­ba­go at the end of May to bring some sus­tain­able aware­ness to youths with spe­cial needs...this is an is­sue we must ad­dress and there is no more time to wait around a have death by meet­ings on the is­sue. We must act. We will be host­ing sev­er­al lead­er­ship camps like we did last sum­mer all over Trinidad and To­ba­go. Last sum­mer we did Bridge of Hope Chil­dren's home, The Mu­sic Lit­er­a­cy Trust on Nel­son Street, a Hilton Lead­er­ship Chef Camp and a few oth­ers for cor­po­rates. We are mo­bilised now in Dubai and are field­ing mo­bil­i­sa­tion.

The Foun­da­tion

The Grow­ing Lead­ers Foun­da­tion is a not-for-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion based in Trinidad and To­ba­go. The or­gan­i­sa­tion is head­ed by Sal­ly Del­la Casa, whose port­fo­lio is list­ed as dream­er-in-chief and lead tree shak­er.