The Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion has once again joined forces with the Church of Je­sus Christ of Lat­ter-day Saints (LDS) to strength­en com­mu­ni­ties and cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for vul­ner­a­ble groups through sus­tain­able, skills-based projects.

To­geth­er, the or­gan­i­sa­tions have com­mit­ted $450,000 to­ward two ini­tia­tives fo­cused on cre­at­ing work op­por­tu­ni­ties and im­prov­ing the liveli­hoods of per­sons liv­ing with dis­abil­i­ties.

The To­ba­go School for the Deaf, Speech and Lan­guage Im­paired re­ceived $220,000 to ex­pand its agro-pro­cess­ing and pack­ag­ing ini­tia­tive—a project de­signed to cre­ate em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties for its past and present stu­dents. The school will use the funds to pur­chase equip­ment and ma­te­ri­als to scale up its poul­try and egg farm­ing ven­tures, sup­port­ing its mis­sion to equip stu­dents with prac­ti­cal, in­come-gen­er­at­ing skills for in­de­pen­dent liv­ing.

Mean­while, the Care Helpers Or­gan­i­sa­tion of T&T re­ceived $175,000 to sup­port 30 fam­i­lies car­ing for per­sons with cere­bral pal­sy. Through train­ing in home hy­dro­pon­ics and gar­den­ing, par­tic­i­pants will learn to grow their own pro­duce—re­duc­ing house­hold food ex­pens­es, en­cour­ag­ing healthy eat­ing, and pro­vid­ing ther­a­peu­tic ben­e­fits for both care­givers and in­di­vid­u­als liv­ing with cere­bral pal­sy.

LDS Stake Pres­i­dent Christo­pher T. Danzell said the part­ner­ship re­flects the Church’s on­go­ing com­mit­ment to ser­vice and em­pow­er­ment.

“These com­mu­ni­ty ini­tia­tives align per­fect­ly with the church’s mis­sion to fol­low the Sav­ior’s ex­am­ple by serv­ing oth­ers and help­ing them be­come more self-re­liant,” he said.

“The agri­cul­tur­al train­ing em­pow­ers chil­dren with dis­abil­i­ties by giv­ing them prac­ti­cal skills and op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­de­pen­dence, while strength­en­ing fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties through ed­u­ca­tion, self-re­liance, and in­clu­sion.”

Di­ana Mathu­ra-Hob­son, project man­ag­er at the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion, high­light­ed the shared vi­sion of in­clu­sion and sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

“Our joint so­cial in­vest­ment project speaks di­rect­ly to liveli­hoods and sus­tain­abil­i­ty,” she said.

“Through ini­tia­tives like these, we’re cre­at­ing re­al op­tions for mar­gin­alised com­mu­ni­ties—es­pe­cial­ly per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties and their fam­i­lies—to par­tic­i­pate ful­ly and eq­ui­tably in so­ci­ety.”

On Oc­to­ber 8, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion and the LDS Church vis­it­ed the To­ba­go School for the Deaf, Speech and Lan­guage Im­paired to view progress on the agro-pro­cess­ing project. Through its part­ner­ships and in­vest­ments, the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion con­tin­ues to pri­ori­tise ini­tia­tives that ex­pand op­por­tu­ni­ties and pro­mote self-re­liance among mar­gin­alised and vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties across T&T.