In stay­ing true to their mis­sion of giv­ing fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to fam­i­lies for med­ical and ed­u­ca­tion­al needs, The Said­wan Foun­da­tion has do­nat­ed $60,000 to­wards ed­u­ca­tion­al needs, and $60,000 in 2025 to the Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T.

Through its bold com­mit­ment to up­lift­ing ed­u­ca­tion un­der its theme, “Em­pow­er­ing Through Ed­u­ca­tion,” TSF do­nat­ed $60,000 worth of ed­u­ca­tion­al vouch­ers across Trinidad, giv­ing chil­dren a stronger start to their aca­d­e­m­ic jour­ney.

This in­clud­ed 120 vouch­ers val­ued at $500 each—cov­er­ing books, sta­tionery, and uni­forms—just in time for the new school term, to the fol­low­ing schools:

Poole Riv­er Pres­by­ter­ian School – Grad­u­at­ing class and school-wide do­na­tion

Tul­sa Trace Hin­du School—Ho­n­our­ing lega­cy and sup­port­ing fu­ture gen­er­a­tions

Rock Riv­er RC School (Moru­ga)—Up­lift­ing rur­al com­mu­ni­ties with vi­tal re­sources

Lib­ertville TML School (Rio Claro)—Spread­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty to the south-east

Chair­man of TSF, Ahmed Said­wan, said that the much-need­ed sup­port and gen­eros­i­ty of the wider pop­u­la­tion are some­times tar­get­ed on­ly at ur­ban-based schools, and there is a crit­i­cal need to sup­port fam­i­lies in out­ly­ing dis­tricts.

Each of the four prin­ci­pals echoed com­mon sen­ti­ments, ac­knowl­edg­ing that the vouch­ers would make a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence to each fam­i­ly.

The foun­da­tion’s do­na­tion to the Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T will be used to pur­chase con­tin­u­ous dig­i­tal glu­cose mon­i­tors for chil­dren liv­ing with Type 1 Di­a­betes.

Pres­i­dent of DATT, An­drew Dhanoo, said, “I ex­tend heart­felt thanks on be­half of our board, the chil­dren we serve, and their fam­i­lies to the Said­wan Foun­da­tion for their ex­tra­or­di­nary gen­eros­i­ty.

“The re­cent do­na­tion of $60,000 to our chil­dren with di­a­betes con­tin­u­ous glu­cose mon­i­tor (CGM) fund marks their sec­ond sub­stan­tial con­tri­bu­tion, and we are deeply moved by their on­go­ing com­mit­ment to this life-chang­ing cause. The di­rec­tors and donors of the Said­wan Foun­da­tion have not on­ly giv­en funds, but they have giv­en peace of mind, dig­ni­ty, and hope to fam­i­lies fac­ing the dai­ly chal­lenges of Type 1 di­a­betes.

“Through the sup­port of the Said­wan Foun­da­tion and oth­er com­pas­sion­ate bene­fac­tors, we have in­tro­duced CGMs to T&T over the past two years, with more than 40 chil­dren now ben­e­fit­ing from this tech­nol­o­gy. In de­vel­oped coun­tries, CGMs are con­sid­ered es­sen­tial, and we are now see­ing first-hand how trans­for­ma­tive they are for our chil­dren: bet­ter blood sug­ar con­trol, few­er emer­gency hos­pi­tal vis­its, em­pow­ered self-care, and a sense of se­cu­ri­ty for par­ents who can fi­nal­ly breathe a lit­tle eas­i­er. This gift changes lives at just $1,200 per child per year. We wel­come and en­cour­age oth­er donors to join us in spon­sor­ing a child be­cause every child de­serves the best chance at health, free­dom, and a fu­ture,” Dhanoo added.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tions ad­vis­er of TSF Daren Dho­ray and founder of Cy­ber­SafeTT, is proud to sup­port ini­tia­tives that align close­ly with the mis­sion of em­pow­er­ing youth through ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion and dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy.

“This year’s ed­u­ca­tion­al vouch­er pro­gramme pro­vid­ed tan­gi­ble sup­port to un­der­priv­i­leged stu­dents across rur­al and un­der­served com­mu­ni­ties—mir­ror­ing the core val­ues of Cy­ber­SafeTT. Through this col­lab­o­ra­tion, we con­tin­ue to cham­pi­on equal op­por­tu­ni­ties for stu­dents na­tion­wide, not on­ly by sup­ply­ing crit­i­cal school re­sources but al­so by fos­ter­ing safer and smarter dig­i­tal en­gage­ment.

“By com­bin­ing fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance with ed­u­ca­tion­al ad­vo­ca­cy, our foun­da­tions are help­ing stu­dents build strong aca­d­e­m­ic back­grounds and nav­i­gate the dig­i­tal world with con­fi­dence and re­silience,” he said.

Said­wan in­di­cat­ed that TSF’s con­tin­ued abil­i­ty to as­sist fam­i­lies is cred­it­ed to the gen­eros­i­ty and kind­ness of donors, in­clud­ing cor­po­rate, fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends, and with­out their in­volve­ment, TSF’s ef­fec­tive­ness in help­ing will be lim­it­ed.

He added that for decades the State has done an im­mense job in pro­vid­ing free med­ical con­sum­ables and med­ica­tion, to­geth­er with free books, uni­forms, lap­tops, trans­porta­tion, etc, and a myr­i­ad of so­cial ser­vices.

“The cost of these es­sen­tial ameni­ties should not be sole­ly borne by the State. We should all do what­ev­er we can, of course, based on the abil­i­ty to do so.”

Fol­low us on Face­book and In­sta­gram @said­wan­foun­da­tion or vis­it our web­site www.said­wan­foun­da­tion.org. Those will­ing to help us pro­vide sup­port to the fi­nan­cial­ly vul­ner­a­ble in so­ci­ety con­tact as at out­reach@said­wan­foun­da­tion.org,  and 684-3654, 682-7554, and 680-6480.