By Prem Calvin Prashad
After several successful months of gathering books, toys and clothing from the community, local charity West Indians Serving Humanity gathered and shipped 13 cargo barrels with donated items for the needy in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago Nov. 7.
The donated goods were a grassroots effort, the bulk of which came from Queens residents. The distribution of the barrel contents will be supervised by the group’s board members, as well as a team of local volunteers and charities in those countries.
Among locals who will be heading to the Caribbean to facilitate the distribution of donated goods, WISH President Safraz Dean, as well as Marlon Seetharan and Praim Samsoondar, will supervise distribution in Guyana. They plan to work with three organizations, including the Railway View Project, which provides tutoring and remedial literacy programs for Guyanese children; the Prabhu Sharan Orphanage in Cornelia Ida; and the Ruimveldt Children’s Home, a home for HIV-positive children in the capital, Georgetown.
WISH will be joined by Students Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination and the Demerara Foundation, which will be providing meals along with aiding the distribution of donated goods.
Ricardo Babulal will be joining WISH board member Khemraj Persaud in Trinidad, where they will be working with the Trinidad branch of Mothers2Mothers, a non-governmental organization that works with HIV-positive mothers and their children to make safe and healthy decisions as well as provide pre- and post-natal care. Donated toys will be included in Christmas care packages given to the mothers.
It was originally thought that much of the monetary donations collected by WISH would cover the cost to ship the barrels of donated goods to the Caribbean. Since that time, the freight and logistics company, Laparkan, stepped up to cover the cost of shipping barrels to the destination countries, a substantial savings for the WISH charity.
Many here in Queens will recognize Laparkan as a community institution synonymous with shipping goods “back home,” and indeed Wesley Kirton, corporate manager for marketing and external relations at Laparkan, said that “in New York we are quite active supporting charities in what we consider a partnership.”
He continued to note that Laparkan had relied on these local partnerships to provide disaster relief following major floods and storms in Jamaica and Guyana, as well as the aftermath of Haiti’s devastating earthquake.
Laparkan’s charitable work includes a longstanding scholarship program for New York-area high school students as well as funding youth programs.
When asked about the motivation for helping WISH, Kirton noted, “This is in keeping with our tradition of giving back to the communities we serve, especially at the holiday season, when we know that children need to be shown all the love and compassion a society can give them.”
WISH credits Mike Singh, chairman and CEO of Telekom Caribe, for connecting them with Laparkan. Singh, who was born in Georgetown and now lives in Florida, runs the Demerara Foundation and executive members of that group will be working in conjunction with WISH in their efforts next month.
Singh said, “I myself was not born with a gold spoon in my mouth. I know what it is [to be] socially marginalized.”
Singh described his childhood in “the lost decade” of communist rule over Guyana, which banned most imports and the country suffered economic stagnation, which led to a mass diaspora to the United States and Canada.
This experience led Singh to launch his foundation to address the root causes of poverty, namely corruption and poor governance. The Demerara Foundation has launched efforts to facilitate the renewal of schools and community centers, promote values-based youth programs and cultivate entrepreneurship and leadership. The organization will also seek to facilitate micro-lending by working with local partners.
To arrange a pickup of charitable goods, contact WISH at 347-699-3510 or info@thewishgroup.org. For updates on the group’s progress, visit facebook.com/thewishgroup. Donations of new and gently used items are accepted year-round, although toys must be in their original packaging.
