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Thursday, May 15, 2025

Promise House TT making a difference

by

747 days ago
20230430

Nel­son Man­dela said, “His­to­ry will judge us by the dif­fer­ence we make in the every­day lives of chil­dren, for they are the foun­da­tion for a bet­ter na­tion and world.”

Our beau­ti­ful T&T is plagued by its fair share of trau­ma­tis­ing cas­es of can­cer in chil­dren. Even a glanc­ing re­view of the pae­di­atric can­cer cas­es in T&T re­veals many missed chemother­a­py ap­point­ments and missed fol­low-ups, lead­ing to failed treat­ment and pos­si­ble loss of life … a tru­ly sad hap­pen­stance.  

Many forms of pae­di­atric can­cers have gone from be­ing a death sen­tence to a cur­able dis­ease. Thanks to ad­vances in treat­ments, the over­all sur­vival rate for pae­di­atric can­cers has in­creased from ten per cent a few decades ago to near­ly 90 per cent to­day. For our chil­dren to ben­e­fit from these sur­vival rates, we must be proac­tive in en­sur­ing the com­ple­tion of treat­ment and con­tin­ued sup­port for their af­fect­ed fam­i­lies. 

 It is un­der­stand­able with­in the fam­i­ly struc­ture that com­mon­ly ex­ists in the Caribbean that if there are mul­ti­ple chil­dren, or­gan­is­ing for one child to at­tend med­ical ap­point­ments while try­ing to care for oth­er chil­dren can be chal­leng­ing. Par­ents find their re­sources of time, en­er­gy and fi­nances are so stretched, that of­ten they de­lay or ne­glect med­ical fol­low-up. 

Gen­e­sis of Promise House TT

For these rea­sons and the pas­sion with­in the hearts of a com­mit­ted group of peo­ple to im­prove the lives of in­no­cent chil­dren af­flict­ed by can­cer, Promise House TT, a reg­is­tered NGO, was birthed. 

Start­ing with the ren­o­va­tions of a prop­er­ty in San­ta Cruz, when com­plet­ed this ‘home away from home’ will pro­vide a com­pre­hen­sive liv­ing en­vi­ron­ment con­ducive to suc­cess­ful pa­tient re­cov­ery, keep­ing in mind the holis­tic needs of the child.

“We are cur­rent­ly ren­o­vat­ing the build­ing and grounds, with the next steps be­ing fur­nish­ing the in­te­ri­or, equip­ping the fa­cil­i­ty, and rais­ing funds to op­er­ate the home. This project will en­hance the lives of pae­di­atric can­cer pa­tients and their fam­i­lies un­speak­ably, as their stay at Promise House TT will not on­ly en­sure their at­ten­dance at clin­ic ap­point­ments, but will in­clude ser­vices such as play ther­a­py, tu­ition, and oc­cu­pa­tion­al ther­a­py at no cost to the fam­i­ly. This fa­cil­i­ty will meet world-class stan­dards. It will be a home that most of these chil­dren have nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced,” the NGO stat­ed.

By get­ting this project off the ground and in­to re­al­i­ty, the group will change the lives of these chil­dren and build a stronger foun­da­tion in this coun­try.

“From the con­cep­tu­al­i­sa­tion to where we have reached in the cur­rent ren­o­va­tion time­line, this project has seen many vol­un­teers and cre­at­ed a wave of pos­i­tiv­i­ty in our T&T land­scape. Do­na­tions such as cards of hope from a kinder­garten class to part pro­ceeds from a bin­go fundrais­er, we have been touched by the mean­ing­ful ges­tures of this project.

“We en­cour­age every­one and any­one that wants to be in­volved, to do so, whether it’s time de­vot­ed, re­sources, phys­i­cal labour, per­son­al skill, or mon­e­tary do­na­tion, all are ap­pre­ci­at­ed.”


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