Ten new ‘Ex­tra­or­di­nary Projects Im­pact­ing Com­mu­ni­ties’ (EPIC) projects de­signed to trans­form lives sus­tain­ably, cur­rent­ly are un­der­way thanks to fund­ing from the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion and Shell Trinidad and To­ba­go Lim­it­ed (Shell T&T).

Some TT$1 mil­lion in com­mu­ni­ty grants were dis­bursed at the end of 2023, with the projects set to be com­plet­ed by March 2024.

The Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion launched EPIC in 2016 as a small grants’ ini­tia­tive, and it has con­tin­u­ous­ly grown in scale and im­pact since then. Since its es­tab­lish­ment, EPIC has im­pact­ed 140 com­mu­ni­ties in Trinidad and To­ba­go through a to­tal in­vest­ment of TT$6.2 mil­lion.

Through part­ner­ship with Shell T&T, the 2023-2024 EPIC pro­gramme of­fered 10 com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tions an en­hanced TT$100,000 grant to im­ple­ment sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ty ini­tia­tives in the ar­eas of re­new­able en­er­gy, agri­cul­ture, and the en­vi­ron­ment.

Chair­man of the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion, De­sha Clif­ford, ex­plained the pur­pose of the EPIC Pro­gramme.

“The EPIC pro­gramme speaks to sup­port­ing com­mu­ni­ties in a way that favours a bot­tom-up ap­proach. You tell us what’s im­por­tant to you and we help you re­alise your vi­sion, al­ways with the com­mu­ni­ty and its peo­ple at the cen­tre,” Clif­ford stat­ed. “Our role is to em­pow­er our part­ners to have greater reach and im­pact in their com­mu­ni­ties.”

The Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) is hard at work in Tobago, implementing a solar-powered, bird squawker sound deterrent system, using the Digicel Foundation and Shell T&T's EPIC Grant. [Image courtesy Digicel Foundation]

Gen­er­al Man­ag­er-Safe­ty and En­vi­ron­ment at Shell Trinidad and To­ba­go, Clint Khan, ob­serves that such ini­tia­tives are in line with Shell T&T’s so­cial in­vest­ment strat­e­gy.

“To­geth­er, we could do more, reach more, go fur­ther, be bold­er. Shell and the Foun­da­tion could lever­age our col­lec­tive strengths to sup­port or­gan­i­sa­tions across both Trinidad and To­ba­go, in rur­al and ur­ban com­mu­ni­ties, to ben­e­fit per­sons of all ages, at all stages, from all walks of life. To­geth­er, we are build­ing lo­cal ca­pac­i­ty, fos­ter­ing in­no­va­tion, and con­tribut­ing to sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment,” Khan said.

The or­gan­i­sa­tions im­ple­ment­ing 2023-2024 EPIC projects are Barataria Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil; Brazil Vil­lage Farm­ers’ Group; Canaan Bon Ac­cord Sports Club; Caribbean Agri­cul­tur­al Re­search and De­vel­op­ment In­sti­tute (CAR­DI); Del­tones In­sti­tute of Steel Drums and Mu­sic; Na­pari­ma Col­lege; Orig­i­nal Trini­tario Co­coa Ed­u­ca­tion Foun­da­tion; One Seed for Change; and Trinidad and To­ba­go Chap­ter of the As­so­ci­a­tion of En­er­gy En­gi­neers in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Sorop­ti­mist In­ter­na­tion­al Es­per­ance.