L’Oréal Caribe supports domestic violence survivors

Black Immigrant Daily News

The content originally appeared on: Trinidad and Tobago Newsday

HELPING HAND: From left, Carmen Pruna, Active Cosmetics Director, L’Oréal Caribe; Dave Hughes, General Manager of L’Oréal Caribe; Carolina Serrano, Senior Marketing Manager, L’Oréal Caribe and Delores Robinson, founder of NGO GROOTS T&T following a product donation and visit to the NGO. PHOTO COURTESY L’OREAL CARIBE

A NON-GOVERNMENTAL organisation offering life saving help to vulnerable women and children escaping abusive circumstances recently received a grant of €59,000 from the L’Oréal Fund for Women.

GROOTS TT, which stands for Grassroots Organisations Operating Together in Sisterhood and which is located in La Horquetta, is the beneficiary of this donation, a L’Oréal press release stated.

This NGO operated two transition homes from two rented houses, and according to its founder Delores Robinson, it was facing imminent eviction from both locations, if not for the lifeline given by L’Oréal Caribe.

“These grants are a life saver, and that is not an exaggeration, as the homes are crucial to GROOTS’s work of transitioning women from their abusive situations to a more normal life,” Robinson said.

She told a team headed by Dave Hughes, General Manager, L’Oréal Caribe, “The homes offer a safe space for female victims of gender-based violence, those struggling with mental health issues (stress, depression, anxiety), different sexual orientation stigma, and HIV/AIDS.

“They receive counselling here, and the home is a base for the organisation’s Food Economic Empowerment Development and Sustainability (FEEDS) programme. It is a primary tool used to impart life skills, vocational and even agriculture skills to the women so they can become financially independent on their path to recovery and normality.”

Robinson said the grant from the L’Oréal Fund for Women will benefit women who are survivors of domestic violence by paying the transition home’s rent, stipends for additional counsellors, life Skills coach, and trainers and supporting personals in the implementation of phase one of the FEEDS programme.

The head of the NGO praised the L’Oréal’s Fund for Women for being a savior for her organisation’s work. Several times, she indicated, she had to fund several initiatives on her own and this included paying rent for the transition home during the height of the covid19 lockdown and pandemic, providing over 6,000 meals for female headed PLHIV (people living with HIV) and their families, socially displaced people living on the streets of Curepe, St Augustine and Tunapuna, as well as domestic violence survivors.

“Most times I use my own funding, but we also get private donations from stakeholders sympathetic to our cause. GROOTS T&T does not receive Government funding, but we do work closely with several government units which send women and children to the home for sanctuary.

“So far, the home has taken in 37 women and 26 children, and up to December 2020, we would have referred about 30 women and children because we could not feed them. Four women are currently living at the transition home.”

General Manager of L’Oréal Caribe, Dave Hughes, said L’Oréal will continue supporting GROOTS TT so they can own their facilities and expand their work.

“The L’Oréal Fund for Women was established specifically to fund initiatives globally like the work of GROOTS TT that focuses on empowering women at risk of gender-based violence and different types of oppression such as poverty and access to education.”

He added that the women and children GROOTS T&T are helping will join the already 400,000 women worldwide the L’Oréal Fund for Women has already helped.

L’Oréal is the world’s largest cosmetics company and started a €50M solidarity fund two years ago as cases of domestic and sexual violence, and loss of income for women soared because of the pandemic.

GROOTS was founded in 2014 and was registered as an official NGO in 2016.

In 2018, the organisation opened its first transition home. By 2020, with the increase in demand for transition housing for vulnerable women and children, a second home was opened. However, due to financial constraints in mid-2021 the organisation closed its 14 women and 7 children capacity home.

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