Building communities by Bridging the Gap

The building blocks of a reformed TT starts with community building, Miss Supranational Trinidad and Tobago 2021 Jenelle Thongs believes.

To achieve this, individuals, communities and the country must bridge the gap.

Thongs is doing her part through a transformational leadership programme also titled Bridge the Gap. It is being done at the St Jude’s Home for Girls, Belmont Circular Road, Belmont.

On August 21 Thongs represented TT at the 12th edition of the Miss Supranational Pageant in Malopolska, Poland.

A release said among Thongs’ greatest achievements was placing in the top 24 and winning the 2021 Miss Supranational Intelligence title.

She was required to develop a community service initiative as part of the competition and this was when she developed the Bridge the Gap programme.

Every Saturday from 9 am-12 pm, Thongs goes in and speaks to a group of ten girls from the home. Instead of set topics, she allows free conversation giving way for whatever the girls wish to discuss. The programme began on October 16. She said in this first group there are ten girls and they range from 15-17. The next group is expected to start from January/February and each group will run for six-eight weeks.

She currently has three potential guest speakers for this group; a dentist, lawyer and an entrepreneur.

This is a long-term project for her and it is her way of rebuilding that lost community spirit in the country.

She believes if anyone has an issue or problem, help should be easily available to them through others.

She said gone are the days when people could ask each other for sugar or eggs and this was the reason TT was experiencing a lot of problems.

“It is about being your brother’s keeper...bridging gaps in society and communities...

“I know we want to get back to normalcy but let’s really get back to normalcy where we really can just be there for each other.” Thongs said as simple as it might seem the girls of St Jude’s have such a hard life and the least that TT can do, is when they leave the home, that they have people who genuinely have their best interest at heart.

Through pageantry, Thongs believe she has developed skills that she can easily and readily share with the girls.

“I have been doing this on and off for 11 years now. And I saw how it transformed me – more or less – into the person I wanted to become and the skills I gained from it.

“It is very different from what a lot of people expect from pageantry, at least in my particular experience.

“I have learnt so much – not only about myself – but to be able to navigate certain situations that I would not have had the expertise of knowing. Pageantry got me through that.

“And I just wanted to take the skills that I have learnt, by no means am I a trained professional, but I think you can be a teacher in a sense,” she said.

The 29-year-old Morvant resident does not want it to appear as though she took her crown lightly. Instead, she wants to leave something worthwhile behind when she gives up the crown in a couple of months.

Bridge the Gap branches off from a charitable initiative she started two years ago called Let’s Each One Reach OneTT.

The programme’s ethos which also flows through Bridge the Gap is, “Helping where you can, when you can, with what you have. And it doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from or what you look like.”

At its core, that was too large for the competition’s requirements, then Thongs recalled that she would see St Jude’s Home for Girls while going to school in Belmont.

She then lived in Belmont and attended St Francois Girls College.

She was also given the opportunity to visit the home and speak to the girls for International Women’s Day on March 8 this year.

“I was blown away. It is so sad in a sense, you know, that the public can’t just go in and see because it is a sensitive topic and things that they deal with but I was blown away by the type of talent and how incredible they were.

“I know the Government and the Children’s Authority of TT are doing their part of creating a world for them to exist safely.

“What I wanted to add in my Bridging the Gap was the things that you learn about yourself that you won’t pick up in school,” she said.

In her first session, Thongs told the girls that it was not a school environment but rather an open session where they cover topics like emotional intelligence and communication.

They also addressed how to navigate as a young black woman in a country where women have to “watch over their shoulders.”

Thongs wants to help pave a path for the girls as they age out of the system. She asked what would happen to the girls when they age out.

“Are you able to take the interpersonal skills that you learnt in here and translate that into finding jobs and learning how to communicate with your parents and peers? How are you going to take that and put that into your workplace?

“I just want to give a space where they can feel heard, where there’s no judgment. I’m someone who may not have the exact life that they would have had but who is willing to understand.”

Making the girls feel represented is a top priority for Thongs. Her work with them is not going to end at the Bridge the Gap programme. In the next five years, she wants to create a home for girls who have aged out of the system.

“We all know at 18 years, you really don’t have your life together. So it will be a space for them for six months.”

Thongs said she put it as six months because she does not want the girls to feel as if it is another crutch but a boost in the right direction.

She plans to assist them in setting up bank accounts, by getting internships for them so they can earn and have at least a first and last month’s rent as well as a security deposit.

“Teach them about taxes,” she said.

She wants the programme to be a stepping stone to financial and personal freedom for the young women and their children, where applicable.

The practice manager at Smile Inn Dental has been funding the programme by “God’s Grace” and with the assistance of Miss Supranational TT franchise holder, Crowns and Sashes TT.

She has contacted some corporate entities for sponsorship but has not heard from them as yet.

She understands that monetarily things might be difficult for people and organisations because of the pandemic and so is willing to accept help in terms of service and product support. She added that the group wanted sponsorship in the form of people or organisations who did not mind giving up three hours of their Saturday.

“Eats and drinks, some water. We reached out to certain people to sponsor things like feminine products. We are waiting to hear back from that.”

Smile Inn Dental will sponsor a couple of dental packages for the girls, she said.

She has already started planning for next year. She said when she really understands how the first group was she intends to have more people come in and have conversations with the girls about how they were able to get from point A to B, knowing that there are hardships.

She said she wanted to get people from Morvant; John John, Laventille; deep south and the east.

“To show them that your address has nothing to do with the things that you can achieve.”

Thongs recalled that when she saw Miss Universe 1998 Wendy Fitzwilliam win, she was then six years old and she then felt represented. Fitzwilliam was the second black woman from TT to win the title. (Janelle “Penny” Commissiong was the first)

She then said, “I am going to do that one day.”