Lau­ra Dowrich-Phillips

Joanne Thomas is not en­ter­tain­ing the no­tion of los­ing in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion. The PNM can­di­date for St Ann's East, she is up against a for­mi­da­ble op­po­nent in the COP's Ver­na St Rose-Greaves, but she is not afraid.

"The re­sponse from the peo­ple has been so over­whelm­ing be­cause they know of my work in the cor­po­ra­tion. I don't feel not one bit threat­ened by her. I am very con­fi­dent. This is God's call­ing for me at this time. He would not put me in and not pull me through," she said. Thomas' con­fi­dence is root­ed in over 25 years of work in the St Ann's com­mu­ni­ty where she was born and bred. Moth­er of one boy, she is the el­dest of five chil­dren: four girls and one boy, and since her teens, has been com­mit­ted to help­ing her com­mu­ni­ty. At 16, she found­ed the FASCHH Com­mu­ni­ty Group, which rep­re­sent­ed all the ar­eas of St Ann's. The name of the group is de­rived from those ar­eas: Fondes Aman­des, Ari­api­ta Road, Si­mon Val­ley, Cas­cade, Hut­ton Road and Holo­lo. "Each mem­ber of my ex­ec­u­tive was a mem­ber liv­ing in those com­mu­ni­ties and to­day FASTHH is still the main com­mu­ni­ty group in the area," she told Wom­an­Wise.

Based on her com­mu­ni­ty ac­tiv­i­ties, Thomas was re­cruit­ed in­to the PNM and formed a St Ann's par­ty group of which she was the chair­man. She was al­so an ex­ec­u­tive in the Port-of-Spain North con­stituen­cy group where she al­so served as pres­i­dent, work­ing un­der for­mer Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Eu­lalie James. Thomas con­tin­ued her pro­gres­sion up the po­lit­i­cal lad­der, serv­ing as coun­cil­lor for two terms on the San Juan/Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, un­der whose purview the St Ann's area falls. Fol­low­ing her two-term stint, she be­came an al­der­man for two terms and worked as chair­per­son of the hu­man re­source com­mit­tee and of the com­mu­ni­ty and so­cial de­vel­op­ment com­mit­tee. Thomas said Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning asked her on two pre­vi­ous oc­ca­sions to run as a can­di­date for St Ann's East but she de­clined. The first time, she said, her hus­band, who was ail­ing with a heart con­di­tion for 12 years, had died and she was still strug­gling to cope with the loss, par­tic­u­lar­ly since she was in the Ba­hamas on busi­ness when he passed away. The sec­ond time she thought she was too soft to han­dle the in­tense me­dia scruti­ny min­is­ters came un­der. Her re­cent se­lec­tion was not with­out its con­tro­ver­sy. The screen­ing com­mit­tee re­ject­ed in­cum­bent MP An­tho­ny Roberts de­spite threats from some of his con­stituents to with­hold their vote if he wasn't re­turned as their can­di­date. Thomas, who was work­ing with Port-of-Spain North can­di­date Pa­tri­cia McIn­tosh on her cam­paign, was again asked to run as a can­di­date. She had ini­tial­ly said no.

"An­tho­ny is my friend; I worked with him at the cor­po­ra­tion. I called him and asked what his feel­ings were and of course he told me how he felt. He vent­ed a bit. I asked what would hap­pen to our friend­ship if I con­sid­ered run­ning and he told me I am his sis­ter and noth­ing can come be­tween that."

The screen­ing com­mit­tee im­me­di­ate­ly ap­proved Thomas to run for the seat. Asked what min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lio she would like to have if she's suc­cess­ful at the polls, Thomas said she would leave that in the hands of her po­lit­i­cal leader who would put her in a place where her skills can be utilised. A peo­ple per­son, Thomas has a lot of ex­pe­ri­ence in the fields of event plan­ning and hu­man re­source man­age­ment. Cur­rent­ly the Vice Pres­i­dent, Hu­man Re­sources at the Unit Trust Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Thomas for­mer­ly worked un­der her men­tor Joy Cae­sar, Vice Pres­i­dent, Pub­lic Af­fairs, at Citibank. It was while work­ing there she stud­ied and re­ceived her mas­ters de­gree in Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment from the then In­sti­tute of Busi­ness. It wasn't easy, she said, since she was tak­ing care of her ail­ing hus­band and rais­ing her son. She al­so works with Roy Ma­haraj of Tris­tar Pro­mo­tions, as­sist­ing him in or­gan­is­ing his sig­na­ture car­ni­val fetes as well as spe­cial shows such as the Keyshia Cole and Jef­frey Os­borne shows. Thomas said she has helped with every­thing from ful­fill­ing artistes' rid­ers to li­ais­ing with the me­dia. Thomas is al­so very in­volved at church. She at­tends the St Ann's RC Church where she is the head of the hos­pi­tal­i­ty com­mit­tee. Her years of work­ing with Tris­tar have helped her in this ca­pac­i­ty, she said, as she is bet­ter able to or­gan­ise pil­grim­ages and oth­er events. Stat­ing that she won't be mak­ing promis­es she can­not keep, Thomas said she plans to work with her com­mu­ni­ty to ful­fil its needs. She cit­ed bet­ter roads and youth un­em­ploy­ment as two ar­eas she wants to ad­dress, stat­ing that her HR back­ground would help in the lat­ter re­gard. Whichev­er woman wins the seat, she will be the first fe­male to rep­re­sent the area in Par­lia­ment. Thomas is look­ing for­ward to that his­to­ry-mak­ing role. "When I leave St Ann's East my name has to be a house­hold name," she de­clared.