En­er­gy com­pa­ny BP Trinidad and To­ba­go (bpTT) fur­ther ce­ment­ed its part­ner­ship with Habi­tat for Hu­man­i­ty Trinidad and To­ba­go (HfHTT) in a sod turn­ing cer­e­mo­ny and con­struc­tion kick-off for a home be­ing built for Jai­wan­tee Singh and her fam­i­ly in Ori­on Cir­cu­lar, La Plat­ta, Va­len­cia last week­end. "This is the third of four homes that we are build­ing with Habi­tat this year as bpTT has pledged $600,000 to con­struct four homes over the next two years. To­day marks the be­gin­ning of a won­der­ful jour­ney for Jai­wan­tee and her fam­i­ly, in as much as it sig­ni­fies a deep­en­ing of our part­ner­ship with Habi­tat. This col­lab­o­ra­tion is more than build­ing homes; it is about trans­form­ing lives by un­lock­ing the en­er­gy of our peo­ple and pos­i­tive­ly con­tribut­ing to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment," Ron­da Fran­cis, Cor­po­rate Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty man­ag­er, bpTT said in a re­lease.

The oc­ca­sion al­so rep­re­sent­ed the sec­ond 'Women's Build' ini­tia­tive by HfHTT, where all the labour in the con­struc­tion process will be pro­vid­ed by women. Over 60 fe­males rep­re­sent­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions in­clud­ing bpTT, the Trinidad & To­ba­go Reg­i­ment, the Trinidad & To­ba­go Cadet Force, the Cana­di­an Women's Club and the Vol­un­teer Cen­tre of Trinidad and To­ba­go, an­swered the call. It was a demon­stra­tion of 'woman pow­er' on sev­er­al lev­els as those con­tribut­ing to the ef­fort al­so in­clud­ed Daniela Tra­macere, Charg&ea­cute; d'Af­faires of the Eu­ro­pean Union Del­e­ga­tion to Trinidad and To­ba­go; Unit­ed States Am­bas­sador, Beat­rice Wilkin­son-Wel­ters; High Com­mis­sion­er of Cana­da, Karen L. Mc­Don­ald; and Michelle Cross-Fen­ty, In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank rep­re­sen­ta­tive to Trinidad and To­ba­go. "I have been hop­ing and pray­ing for over 20 years now that I would be able to pro­vide a home for my fam­i­ly. To­day is the an­swer to those prayers and it is tru­ly a dream come true for us. I can't thank bpTT and Habi­tat for Hu­man­i­ty enough for giv­ing us this gift. As a sin­gle mom, it is es­pe­cial­ly em­pow­er­ing to see that it is the sweat of fel­low women that is mak­ing this hap­pen," an emo­tion­al Singh said.