YAWDIE TO YARD FOUNDATION LAUNCHES IN COCKBURN PEN

Jamaican immigrant Ashley “skittles” Henry gives a lending hand through the conceptualizing and establishment of foundation.

Sunday, February 27, 2022 - Kingston, Jamaica: Volunteers from the Yawdie to yard foundation were out in their numbers and elated to donate school supplies, clothing, and personal items to members of the Cockburn community. The mission of the foundation is to

“leave an indelible mark on the lives of our Jamaican brothers and sisters through sustainable donations towards education, daily necessities and community development.”

The conceptualization of the foundation was birthed when, Henry, migrated to Canada a few years back and saw an incredible opportunity on making a few observations.

“I am a Jamaican immigrant living in Canada, I was shocked at how resources, materials, clothes, and opportunities at large were discarded by Canadians due to the availability and ease of access to said resources."

Henry believes that the said discarded resources would be greatly appreciated and be put to greater use by people in needed communities.

“Many of my friends in Canada would clean their closets quarterly and simply discard of the clothes and material either in the bin or donating to organizations they had no knowledge about just to rid their personal space and homes of the items they no longer needed. Many also would leave scholarship applications and possible assistance on the shelf due to ease of access to money and resources to fund education from other government entities. Put frankly, they were spoilt for choice.”

Having worked in finance for many large charitable organizations, Henry observed how small a percentage of donations, resources or funds donated actually reached the people in need these organizations were meant to serve. This is where she saw the opportunity for Yawdie to Yaad to fix this issues that existed and to serve as a direct pipeline of Jamaican's abroad (immigrants and of Jamaican heritage) to serve communities and individuals directly and remove the bureaucracy, red tape, overhead costs and misuse of donations.

Our mission is to connect Jamaicans living abroad with the common goal of improving the lives of the youth a yaad through sizeable and sustainable donations towards education, daily necessities, and community development. YawdieToYaad exists to empower Jamaicans around the world to contribute to local youth to make a sustainable impact in the areas of youth education, community development and daily necessities, for Out of Many, we are one.

At the end of the launch, we spoke to, Garfield Johnson “Pops”, one of the organizers in Cockburn pen, who expressed how he thought the initiative went.

“Well, nuff a them really grateful and thankful, cause you done know a ghetto and nothing nah really gwaan fi di kids dem, so the things they got were appreciated”.

He also indicated that he would want to see something like this happen more often.

This is just the very first of many to come and would like to drive awareness about this initiative and essentially get more hands-on deck. If you are interested and would like to contribute in any way, you can contact yawdietoyaad@gmail.com.