Cradling a community

His example has been a guiding block to Dr Oti, who is a general practitioner in a number of community clinics in Portof- Spain and a surgical officer at the Advanced Cardiovascular Institute, Surgical Therapies, Anna St, Woodbrook.

Esimaje, like his father, shares the view that it takes a village to raise a child and through the Esimaje Foundation jointly founded with Dr David Toby, has been doing work to build and develop TT ’s human capital and the country itself.

The foundation recently launched its Cradle to Career pipeline initiative aimed at, “preparing children for a successful future where education is a priority from early childhood until well after secondary school.” This is a central part of the East Port-of-Spain initiative which also includes Resident Leadership Academy, the East Port-of-Spain Teachers Education, Cradle to Pipeline, Parental Educational Programmes for Fathers, First Teacher, the East Port-of-Spain Community Initiative Roundtable and Health First. The pipeline, an information package read, was designed to, “(build) a strong support system around the traditional education pipeline, ensuring no child slips through the cracks, guiding them from cradle to career.” The pipeline identifies schools in high needs communities, with specific interest being paid to the East Port-of- Spain community.

Building entrepreneurs Esimaje always helped those who came into the hospital but decided to “institutionalise” his help, particularly after his father died in 2004. Seeing many young men enter the hospital with gunshot wounds and assisting them as well was a driving factor in starting the foundation.

In 2006, the Esimaje Foundation was born.

Since its inception, the foundation has been steadily and quietly working toward building a better TT . Esimaje barely smiled during the interview but when he said he does this because he thinks about the future and about crafting a future where everyone has value, a wide smile lit his face.

Over the years, the foundation has done work in areas such as building entrepreneurship in high-risk areas through a programme called The E In Me (The Entrepreneur in Me) which is an entrepreneurial awareness and potential discovery workshop designed to help people discover their business/ entrepreneurial abilities.

The programme peers its participants with mentors in the same line of business and also areas where their businesses need strengthening. There is also Daddy please Don’t Go which is a parenting skills workshop for fathers which includes family programmes, sports, father and child bonding activities, motivational speeches, health and wellness management and career counselling.

The foundation partners with groups and ministries such as The Ministry of National Security (Citizen Security Programme) and the then Ministry of Gender, Youth and Child Development in the execution of the programmes.

“The East Port-of-Spain thrive initiative is a Cradle to Career pipeline. What it hopes to do is create a community of opportunity that is centred around strong schools, strong families and strong neighbourhoods. It is modelled after the Harlem’s Children Zone and promised neighbourhoods. A geographic area is identified amongst high risk or high needs communities and a blanket of services