Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Unit­ed States Am­bas­sador Can­dace Bond says that coun­try stands ready to as­sist T&T in mak­ing ed­u­ca­tion a re­al­i­ty for mi­grant chil­dren. Bond said so dur­ing a vis­it to La Ro­maine Mi­grant Sup­port (LARMS) at the St Bene­dicts Ro­man Catholic Church yes­ter­day. It was her first stop on a vis­it to south Trinidad

“We stand ready, along with the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty here, to as­sist in help­ing make ed­u­ca­tion for mi­grants and refugees a re­al­i­ty in the coun­try. I ac­tu­al­ly have a large back­ground in that, as do mem­bers of the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, and we’ve been dis­cussing, and we stand ready to help the gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go make that a re­al­i­ty,” she said.

Bond said she had served on the Los An­ge­les School Board over­see­ing two mil­lion stu­dents. She said ed­u­ca­tion makes a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence in the lives of chil­dren and al­lows them to suc­ceed.

She said the US Em­bassy is pleased to part­ner with LARMS which was award­ed a US$25,000 Ju­lia Taft Refugee Grant.

Not­ing the group’s as­sis­tance to fam­i­lies to meet their most fun­da­men­tal needs by pro­vid­ing food, med­i­cine and ed­u­ca­tion, Bond added: “As LARMS teach­es chil­dren and sup­ports fam­i­lies with a va­ri­ety of ser­vices, you will ful­fil lives and make dreams come true.”

The am­bas­sador said the Unit­ed States ac­cepts more refugees and mi­grants than any coun­try, in­clud­ing 30,000 peo­ple pri­mar­i­ly from this hemi­sphere every month.

“And we are the largest donor to ad­dress this hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis, hav­ing giv­en over US$2.8 bil­lion to help as­sist mi­grants and refugees,” she said.

LARMS founder/co­or­di­na­tor Ang­ie Ram­nar­ine thanked the US Em­bassy for their sup­port since the group’s in­cep­tion in 2019.

“The sup­port we have got­ten from the Unit­ed States Em­bassy has been the most tan­gi­ble and the most long-term we have re­ceived up to now,” she said. “This was one case of diplo­ma­cy reach­ing the grass­roots and they walked every step of the way with me to make sure that that hap­pened.”

Re­call­ing that they re­ceived fund­ing from the grant in No­vem­ber 2022, Ram­nar­ine said it is a six-month fund des­ig­nat­ed to be used not on­ly for food and med­i­cine but al­so for ed­u­ca­tion­al needs. She said the funds were crit­i­cal in en­sur­ing their pro­grammes and ser­vices con­tin­ue.

Bond al­so vis­it­ed the Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion in San Fer­nan­do, where she be­came emo­tion­al while speak­ing about her “dear friend” Ste­vie Won­der.

“He would just be so proud to be here with you. Ste­vie is some­one who has been able to use dig­i­tal tools in tech­nol­o­gy to have the most beau­ti­ful life. His life is so full. He does not let any­thing stop him,” she said

Bond said the US Em­bassy gave a grant to Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion to teach cod­ing to the vi­su­al­ly im­paired and en­sure they are not left be­hind in the dig­i­tal di­vide.

En­cour­ag­ing them to take a page from Ste­vie Won­der’s book and em­brace tech­nol­o­gy, she said she would en­sure he vis­its T&T.

The am­bas­sador al­so met with San Fer­nan­do May­or Ju­nia Re­grel­lo, had lunch with mem­bers of the San Fer­nan­do Greater Area Cham­ber of Com­merce and vis­it­ed Na­pari­ma Col­lege and San Fer­nan­do Hill.

She said she looked for­ward to learn­ing about com­mu­ni­ties in San Fer­nan­do and “will be on the hunt for the best dou­bles.”