Cradle to Career Pipeline Initiative

The Esimaje Foundation Cradle to Career Pipeline Initiative

Over the past year the Esimaje Foundation has made significant strides in advancing and improving its vision to promote education amongst students of the East Port-of-Spain locale, Trinidad. Typically, known to be a "sore spot" within the island of Trinidad, this area has been riddled with gang warfare, broken homes and single-parenthood. The vision of the Esimaje Foundation is to help those who are directly impacted and affected within such communities – children. The way to interrupt, and possibly create a new discourse of life for the community is through education. Hence, the foundation has since partnered with: Nelson Street Boys R.C. Primary (NSBRC), Russell Latapy Secondary and South East Port of Spain Secondary schools. Fundamentally, to achieve this goal the vision is reflected in the Cradle to Career Pipeline Initiative, which seeks to provide underperforming students with extra classes, resources, time, extra-curricular activities by supporting the key people who play an active role in students’ education, and growth. Therefore, the value inculcated from this programme is not just seen in the child’s education, that is, who gets a high score at the end of the term. On the contrary, value is defined in various ways: the way parents and guardians’ deal with the concerns of their children, the way teachers make the effort to go the extra mile, or the way students face their fears in becoming better readers. This initiative focuses on more than just grades. It helps to nurture beneficiaries into outstanding men for tomorrow.

Therefore, we are seeking to raise $4,809,622.40 TTD dollars for our Cradle to Career Pipeline Initiative.

These funds will go towards the following projects.

2019-2020 Future Projects:

Nelson Street Boys R.C. School

• Remedial Extra classes: we will continue to offer 105 students from standards 1 to 5: food, drinks, stationery, resources and remedial tuition at no cost to them for five days weekly;
• Swimming: it is our hope to continue giving students the chance to learn the skill of swimming, as a way to encourage team bonding, and friendship;
• Parenting Education programme: we will continue to offer parents of present students a programme that is specifically tailored to exposing them to techniques, and methods which improve the way they parent, communicate, and encourage their children. We would also like to increase the number of family outings to encourage family bonding;
• Teacher training: we would like to offer teachers a number of development workshops and trainings that strengthen their skillset and teaching prowess;
• Competitions: we would like to increase the number of competitions we offer each year to students. These competitions are pivoted on educational endeavours such as poetry and spoken word. This allows students to express themselves, their creativity, thoughts and ideas through the knowledge acquired from our programme;
• Structural Upgrades: we have intentions of refurbishing a sick bay or the principal’s office;
• Internet package: we would like to offer a 100 Mbps internet package (50 Mbps upload, 50 Mbps download) for 1 year to staff at the school;
• E in ME: we are seeking to acquire the services of a professional who can teach students, develop a marketing plan, business plan and model for the standard 4 and 5 students at Nelson Street Boys R.C School as it pertains to their aquaponics system.

Russel Latapy Secondary School

• Shade House: we are seeking to implement a fully functional Shade House with an aquaponics and hydroponics system. This system will enable students to learn about urban farming, reduce their carbon footprint and teach them business skills through the sale of produce;
• E in ME: this is emergent from the above Shade House project, and will look at shaping students with an entrepreneurial mind. This will be achieved by exposing students to all stages of farming and the supply chain process; students will learn an appreciation for the value of food, their labour and money.

Vision: Empowering today’s men to be better fathers

Mission: To empower men to take full advantage of available opportunities that foster healthy fatherhood, positive leadership and accountability in the home, community and nation.

Core Values:

• Accountability to stakeholders, funders, clients
• Professionalism
• Integrity
• Excellence
• Trust
• Respect
• Fairness

Background: A couple of years ago, individuals involved in serving young men and fathers in the community saw that there was a need for specific programmes for this special but often neglected group. They wondered what impact might be made if young adult men and fathers were immersed in the cultures of responsible fatherhood and entrepreneurship for a few hours a week, over a short 3-4 month period. What if they could be educated in parenting skills, life skills and business/ entrepreneurship skills, in purely male settings where everyone commits to being responsible fathers, entrepreneurs of their own lives and role models to their children and community? It was at this time that the vision for the Esimaje Foundation was born. Over the last few years we have worked with young men in communities in Trinidad including Morvant, Belle Vue/ Dibe, Cocorite, Pinto Road, La Romaine, Basilon, Gonzales and Tobago.

The Esimaje Foundation, Non-Governmental, Non-Profit Organization, seeks to reach out through the cracks, to people in society. We have steadily focused on men in the execution of our programmes, because we realize that men are central causes of many social problems and most institutions have barely made provision to address these issues.

Current Projects and Achievements:

• Manipulatives: we have purchased cumulatively more than fifty Math, Science, and English manipulatives which are available to students of standards 1 to 5. (NB: Manipulatives allow children to understand subjects, ideas and concepts from a theory or abstractive model, to that of a solid form through the use of physical objects);
• Aquaponics: we have implemented a fully functional Aquaponics system at NSBRC, which grows approximately 66 heads of leafy vegetables and 75 Blue Nile Tilapia fish. The last harvest yielded five hundred and fifty-five dollars ($555.00) from sales, and were sold to parents and those within the community;
• Science Room: ANSA McAL has partnered with The Esimaje Foundation, in retrofitting a fully functioning science room as well as stocking it with the relevant equipment and instruments;
• SEA success rate of repeaters: Out of the fifteen boys from our afterschool programme, eleven successfully completed the SEA examinations passing for 5-6 year secondary schools. NB: the number of boys who re-sat the SEA examination has been the lowest in years;
• Remedial Extra Classes: As part of our core deliverable for the Cradle to Career Initiative, for the last four terms we have consistently offered remedial classes, four days per week for children who are underperforming academically. In addition, we provide children with a snack and drink to encourage their turn-out. We have since served more than 105 students.
• Swimming: Swimming was offered to students taking extra classes as a way to enjoy fun extra-curricular activities.
• Parenting Education programme: we successfully completed 3 cohorts with parents exposing them to different topics such as better communication with children and ways to do homework. Often, our programme ends with an outing of some kind, where parents and children visit interesting places to strengthen bonding, and teachers can observe whether the content taught in the parenting programme is being actualized. Our last outing was held at the Caroni Bird Sanctuary, with 21 parents and 46 children in attendance.
• Teacher training: Since 2018 teachers have participated in a number of workshops and trainings that expose them to subject materials and strategies that improve their teaching skills
• Poetry/Spoken word competitions: during the 2018-2019 academic year children have been exposed to a number of writing opportunities which focused on their choral speaking and composition skills. Children who performed well were awarded prizes to popular attractions such as 5 Islands Water Park.