The Bridge of Hope Chil­dren’s Home at San­gre Chiq­ui­to has been at­tract­ing at­ten­tion from peo­ple both na­tion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

Dr Subesh Ram­jat­tan, founder, di­rec­tor and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer said the home has now at­tained world-class sta­tus as in­sti­tu­tions here and abroad are recog­nis­ing the work be­ing done.

Or­gan­i­sa­tions from Cana­da and Amer­i­ca, he said, come to the home an­nu­al­ly to make fi­nan­cial con­tri­bu­tions, teach the chil­dren and share their ex­pe­ri­ences with them. He said the chil­dren be­come so at­tached to the care­givers who give them love and care that they cry when they are leav­ing.

"The in­sti­tu­tion is pol­lut­ed with an at­mos­phere of love and care," Ram­jat­tan said.

The care­givers, on the oth­er hand, "leave with a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence from chil­dren of var­ied cul­ture and eth­nic­i­ty."

Ram­jat­tan was speak­ing on Tues­day when busi­ness­man Sie­u­nar­ine Coos­al, his son, Ra­jiv and oth­ers toured the home and pre­sent­ed the ad­min­is­tra­tors with a cheque. The founder and his fi­nan­cial di­rec­tor, Anil Ramdin were on hand on re­ceive the cheque.

Coos­al vis­it­ed the kitchen where 125 meals are pre­pared dai­ly by chief chef Naz­i­ma Roops­ingh and her staff to feed the chil­dren.

Coos­al al­so met with some of the lit­tle ones where he ex­pressed his care and love, shook their hands and gave them hugs. He al­so vis­it­ed the pre-school where he met with pupils en­gag­ing in their dai­ly ac­tiv­i­ties.

It was an eye open­ing ex­pe­ri­ence for Coos­al and his en­tourage when they went in­to the Ori­en­ta­tion/Fam­i­ly Room gift­ed by Tony Ram­ta­hals­ingh and fam­i­ly and saw 13 ba­bies, ages two to six months, ly­ing in their cribs, some sleep­ing, some awake.

Some of these ba­bies were re­port­ed aban­doned by their moth­ers at the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal while oth­ers were tak­en by the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty and sent to the home be­cause par­ents were ei­ther drug ad­dicts or faced some un­for­tu­nate cir­cum­stances.

Af­ter the ini­tial shock, they held and played with the ba­bies.

Min­istry of­fi­cials, doc­tors and nurs­es vis­it the Bridge of Hope reg­u­lar­ly to en­sure the ba­bies are healthy.

Ram­jat­tan thanked Coos­al for not on­ly con­tribut­ing fi­nan­cial­ly since the in­cep­tion of Bridge of Hope in 1993, but al­so for con­tin­u­ing to pave around the fa­cil­i­ty. Coos­al said he was im­pressed with the fa­cil­i­ty and ef­forts of the hard work­ing staff.

The in­sti­tu­tion hous­es 33 chil­dren and has a staff of 22 em­ploy­ees. One third of the fund­ing comes from the Gov­ern­ment while the rest comes from gen­er­ous busi­ness­es and in­di­vid­u­als.

Ram­jat­tan said Bridge of Hope has been part­ner­ing with oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tion such as Women's clubs and UWI which have been pro­vid­ing aca­d­e­m­ic, vo­ca­tion­al, so­cial, recre­ation­al and oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ties to the home.

An­na Marie Mor­ris, ad­min­is­tra­tive head at Bridge of Hope, they re­ceive calls dai­ly from all over the coun­try to have chil­dren placed at the home, but said it was "filled to ca­pac­i­ty."

This shows the im­pact the Bridge of Hope is hav­ing on chil­dren, she said, many of whom have grad­u­at­ed and are now work­ing.