Sapphire Miriam Foundation gets financial boost

The Sapphire Miriam Foundation was the recipient of the Digicel Foundation’s Extraordinary Projects Impacting Communities (EPIC) programme grant. EPIC is a US$5,000 grant which encourages private public sector partnership to transform indoor and outdoor community spaces.

In expressing her heartfelt gratitude to the Foundation, Simone Claxton, founder of the Sapphire Miriam Foundation said, “I asked for funding and got so much more, instead I got understanding, support and a real partnership with a corporate entity such as the Digicel Foundation.”

The Sapphire Miriam Foundation was founded in 2012 and caters to underprivileged single mothers and children living in south Trinidad.

Its main objective is to break the cycle of poverty and abuse, among these individuals. Claxton applied for an EPIC grant to develop a Learning Resource Centre in Tulsa Trace, Penal, which is fully equipped to accommodate 40-50 people, and caters to the needs of children ages two and up. The Digicel Foundation EPIC funding was used to purchase desks, chairs, multimedia, manipulatives that assists the student through touch and movement, books, board games and other educational tools.

The aim of the community initiative is to have children in the area use the facility after school, to complete their homework assignments; other uses of the space will include rentals for meetings, toddler care, literacy classes, and computer classes for both children and adults alike.