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Saturday, July 5, 2025

Communities push Beyond Borders for progress

by

20140602

Some 275 per­sons from sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties in Trinidad par­tic­i­pat­ed in a gala cer­e­mo­ny at the Trinidad Hilton Ho­tel last week­end to cel­e­brate their ac­com­plish­ments in the an­nu­al Be­yond Bor­ders Ca­pac­i­ty De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme.

The ini­tia­tive pro­vid­ed train­ing in or­gan­i­sa­tion­al de­vel­op­ment skills for groups in the mar­gin­alised com­mu­ni­ties of Beetham Gar­dens, Farm Road (St Joseph), Mt D'or, Covi­gne and Em­ba­cadere. The pro­gramme was de­vel­oped through a part­ner­ship be­tween BP T&T and The Rose Foun­da­tion, along with the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty through its Cit­i­zen Se­cu­ri­ty Pro­gramme, a re­lease said.

Since the start of the train­ing ini­tia­tive in 2010, 35 or­gan­i­sa­tions have been formed across the five com­mu­ni­ties, re­sult­ing in com­mu­ni­ty-based busi­ness ini­tia­tives in the ar­eas of bot­tled wa­ter, con­struc­tion, graph­ic arts, trans­porta­tion and cater­ing. These en­ter­pris­ers have gen­er­at­ed $7.3m to date.

BPTT's Cor­po­rate Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty man­ag­er, Ron­da Fran­cis, out­lined the ra­tio­nale for the pro­gramme:

She said: "Be­yond Bor­ders be­gan out of the be­lief that if giv­en the tools, your or­gan­i­sa­tion could build your ca­pac­i­ty and so too, your com­mu­ni­ties. It has been in­spir­ing for us to see you trans­form from dis­or­gan­ised, in­for­mal groups in­to for­mal, legal­ly reg­is­tered, high-per­form

"Every per­son and com­mu­ni­ty group here has gone far be­yond the bor­ders that were keep­ing you back from the great­ness you have achieved and will con­tin­ue to achieve."

Putting the en­tire ini­tia­tive in con­text was Ster­ling Bel­grove, ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of The Rose Foun­da­tion which de­liv­ered the train­ing.

"The re­sults we've seen clear­ly show that every com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tion has the op­por­tu­ni­ty to turn rel­e­vant train­ing in­to func­tion­al ac­tiv­i­ties that pro­vide em­ploy­ment and gen­er­ate rev­enue for their com­mu­ni­ty.

"We've changed lives by giv­ing peo­ple the op­por­tu­ni­ty to achieve their full po­ten­tial. Our vi­sion is that this train­ing be spread across the na­tion and em­pow­er com­mu­ni­ties to be­come sus­tain­able and fos­ter a stronger so­ci­ety," Bel­grove said.

Every mem­ber of the com­mu­ni­ty groups at­tend­ing the grad­u­a­tion re­ceived cer­ti­fi­ca­tion recog­nis­ing their com­ple­tion of the ca­pac­i­ty de­vel­op­ment train­ing mod­ules, in­clud­ing or­gan­is­ing and lead­er­ship, in­cor­po­ra­tion and com­pli­ance, good gov­er­nance prac­tices and de­vel­op­ment of strate­gic re­la­tion­ships.

Oth­er high­lights of cer­e­mo­ny in­clud­ed heart­felt tes­ti­mo­ni­als from lead­ers of the var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ty groups, the pre­miere of a mu­sic video de­nounc­ing vi­o­lence that was pro­duced by the Five Phase En­er­gy Sounds As­so­ci­a­tion, of Beetham Gar­dens, and pre­sen­ta­tion of $16,000 to the young artists of So­gren Trace through the sale of their paint­ings pro­duced through the Be­yond Bor­ders pro­gramme.

Ac­cord­ing to Kessel By­er of Em­ba­cadere, San Fer­nan­do, who was able to launch the Amethyst Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion pro­duc­ing pu­ri­fied and ozonat­ed bot­tled wa­ter, the ex­pe­ri­ence had been life-chang­ing.

"This train­ing en­hanced our think­ing process­es and helped us to de­vel­op crit­i­cal tech­ni­cal skills. But more im­por­tant­ly, it helped us to change our mind­set so that we be­lieve that we can be as great as we want to be. We were em­pow­ered with the knowl­edge, skills and con­fi­dence to forge a bet­ter fu­ture for our com­mu­ni­ties and the na­tion as well," By­er said.

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