bmobile, United Way TT team up for text-to-donate initiative

Recognising a gap between people wanting to help others cope with the covid19 pandemic and having ways and means of doing so, local telecoms provider, bmobile, has teamed up with United Way TT for a text-to-donate campaign which supports the latter's covid19 response and recovery fund.

"A lot of people want to help in the national covid19 effort but may not know how,” stated Linda Ramsumir, United Way TT’s NGO relations manager.

According to a press release, the fund was created to provide support to people and local communities most affected by the outbreak. This includes the elderly, recently unemployed, NGOs, frontline workers and persons living with disabilities.

Members of the public can contribute to the fund by texting the word GIVE to HELP (4357) from their bmobile phones. Each text will donate $5.

Bmobile has sponsored the free use of its text-to-donate service to facilitate this effort. The company said it was also the first corporate citizen to lend support to the covid19 fund, kick starting it with a donation of $20,000.

Dr Ronald Walcott, TSTT's chief executive officer said bmobile has partnered with UWTT over eight years as part of its National Day of Caring, as well as with other regional and national relief initiatives for disasters such as the catastrophic Hurricane Irma in 2017 which impacted the Caribbean and the devastating floods in 2018.

"Bmobile supports the UWTT's national relief efforts every year because we believe that it is our duty as the national provider, to give back to TT. We are pleased to be a partner once again in this very important national relief effort and to help mitigate the financial and other difficulties that persons are experiencing as a result of the covid19 pandemic. We will continue to support TT in whatever way we can to ensure that the vulnerable and underserved in our country is not forgotten during this time."

Ramsumir said due to the social distancing and stay-at-home measures in place, their annual National Day of Caring has been replaced with the National Time of Caring 2020, and the fund was part of the 2020 initiative.

"United Way TT is a national NGO working to transform lives by mobilising finances, people and physical resources. We partner with other nonprofit organisations to reach communities throughout TT who are most in need.”

Dr Jennifer Sancho, UWTT's chief executive officer said, "This crisis will have its toll. More than ever, we need to work together as a country to beat the covid19 outbreak and to recover as equitably as possible. The UWTT covid19 response and recovery Fund will enable us to respond to the gaps in the national response as the situation develops and support the important recovery work that comes after.

"Every contribution counts and while this crisis is affecting us all, we are seeing throughout the world how this is disproportionately affecting the more vulnerable. The time for action is now and UWTT offers a cost effective means to pool in one fund to help take action to scale."