Eye of the youth

The Eden Lodge Youth Charitable Trust started its Back to School Programme over 30 years ago as one of its initiatives to assist underprivileged and impoverished children and families across Barbados.

This year’s programme saw close to 530 students from primary, secondary school students across the island as well as from the Samuel Jackman Prescod Institute of Technology and the Barbados Vocational Training Board Skills Training programme, receiving school supplies such as uniforms, games clothes, text, exercise music and work books, bags, shoes, uniforms and stationery, as well as funds for textbooks loan schemes and petty fees.

The presentations, which were made at the Trust’s Partners Cloister Bookstore, Woolworth Co. Ltd., and Abed’s in August, with contributions from a number of the Trust’s Donors including The Sandy Lane Charitable Trust, Ministry of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs, Amarone Charitable Trust, Community Development Department and Ross University.

Other partners included Carib LPG Trading, Scotiabank, Starbucks, ADM Barbados Mills, Cariconsult Group, Great Pacific Group, Peloton, Best of Barbados Limited, Barbados Community Foundation, Cave Shepherd & Co. Ltd, Caribbean Development Bank, the City of Bridgetown Cooperative Credit Union and Digicel Barbados, just to name a few with the latter two providing starter savings accounts and tablets, respectively, for those students who sat the common entrance exams.

Our 2024 Back to School Programme budget was over BBD$300 000. We started off with approximately 457 recipients at the start of the summer vacation in July and swiftly moved to over 530 by the start of the new school term in September. This is a clear indicator that there are a large number of families in Barbados with different challenges, who are in need of assistance. Unfortunately these numbers are increasing yearly.

The needs of these families go beyond school supplies, and it is for this reason that within the last 30 plus years the Trust saw the need to add a Hair Cutting component to our Back to School Programme. To this end, on the Sunday before school reopens every September, we work with the Sandy Lane Charitable Trust and the Drug Education Services Youth Empowered Barber Programme to provide haircuts for some of the students. This year we provided haircuts for 45 students and the initiative was a huge success.

In addition to our Back to School Programme, the Eden Lodge Youth Charitable Trust also assists families with the payment of utility bills including water and electricity, as well as the purchase of groceries throughout the year. Moreover, at Christmas we also provide similar donations including supermarket and gas vouchers, food baskets and gifts, to ensure that the recipients can have as normal a childhood as possible, especially at the most festive time of the year.

These ‘give-back’ programmes are extremely important to the families who benefit; some who have fallen on hard times through no fault of their own. The programmes also go a long way in assisting and making life more manageable for scores of children across the island that are in dire need of assistance. For many, these basic necessities are unattainable. For many, without this assistance they would not be able to attend school.

At the Eden Lodge Youth Charitable Trust we believe that children are our future and we have to invest in them. We believe in leaving no child behind as we do all we can to assist with improving their lives during these formative years of their education.

None of this however, would be possible without the kind assistance of our Partner and Donor organisations that have assisted us over the years and we must express our heartfelt gratitude to each of them. Their assistance and dedication to our cause helps to lighten the burden of many families across the island.
We cannot stress enough the importance of such programmes and appeal to Barbadians and other companies to get on board with these types of programmes. It does not have to be the Eden Lodge Youth Charitable Trust’s programme but we encourage you to start your own programmes or assist other charities. Every little bit of help is needed. There is a huge need for this type of assistance and we must all play our part in giving these children hope for tomorrow.