BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – FOR the fourth consecutive year, members of the St. Johnston’s Mothering Support Group (MSG) have demonstrated their commitment to women who have given birth on Mother’s Day by presenting them bumper hampers.
This Mother’s Day however, as it was in the past three years, only one woman had given birth in St. Kitts, and she is Conchita Eddy of Shadwell.
Eddy gave birth to a handsome, bouncing boy at the Joseph N France General Hospital shortly before 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 10.
On that special day, at about 11:30 a.m., members of the MSG were at the hospital with a bumper hamper awaiting the delivery of the first child. And as it was in 2008, SKNVibes was on hand waiting to witness the altruistic gesture. But it was not until a second visit to the institution on the following day that this media house was able to capture the presentation ceremony on camera.
The basket of goodies, filled with babies’ necessities, was handed over to Eddy in the presence of her baby’s father on Monday afternoon (May 11) in the Maternity Ward.
Speaking with SKNVibes, Vice President of the MSG Agnes Farrell said the new-born would be the fifth child to be benefitting from the association, while Eddy is the fourth mother to have received a bumper hamper.
The previous recipient was Sandrine Richards of Main Street, Sandy Point, who delivered twins [a boy and a girl].
The Vice President explained that the child of each mother presented a hamper was adopted by the MSG. She also informed that the first donation was made in 2006 to a 16-year-old, who had given birth to her second child and was more in need of the bumper hamper [valued more than EC$800] than the person they visited on the previous day and had expected her to be the recipient.
The MSG was founded in 2006 by its Immediate Past President Patricia Farrell, who told this media house that the idea was born out of her love for helping those women faced with multiple challenges.
“Many women had visited me in the past to talk about their problems. So, I said to myself that women really need a forum to express themselves, to air their challenges and concerns, and to help each other. So, I thought ‘why not start something in the church’. We therefore decided to form the group. We started out with about three persons in 2006 and in a short period of time the strength grew to 23,” Patricia said.
She informed that the group believes in empowering women and, in addition to offering bumper hampers on Mother’s Day, “the group engages in activities more geared to relaxing”.
“We do the educational, the spiritual and the physical, in terms of yoga exercises and a lot of other things. But the whole idea is to empower women, and that is the holistic approach that we take. You see, we start by empowering ourselves, because if one is not empowered one cannot empower others,” she explained.
Patricia also explained that in terms of generosity, members of the group would venture out and provide assistance in “whatever way possible”.
“For example,” she added, “at Christmas we have a programme called BIG (Baby Item Give-away), but it is not just limited to babies…whatever we collect from different people we would give to those in need.””
In her explanation of items collected from generous donors, the Immediate Past President said, “You may have a cradle or something that you have used maybe only once and we would give these gently-used items to those persons who would have need for them.”
Only recently five members of the MSG were recognised by the Department of Gender Affairs at the annual International Women’s Day Award Ceremony.
