Genevieve Hadeed has been re-elect­ed as pres­i­dent of the Syr­i­an Lebanese Women’s As­so­ci­a­tion (SLWA) as the or­gan­i­sa­tion em­barks on its mile­stone 75th year of ser­vice to the peo­ple of T&T.

Mrs Hadeed was re-elect­ed on Jan­u­ary 22 dur­ing the SLWA’s An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing and Elec­tions. In her ad­dress, she re­flect­ed on the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s re­mark­able jour­ney, stat­ing, “This mile­stone is a tes­ta­ment to the un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment, strength, tal­ent, dis­ci­pline, and hard work of the gen­er­a­tions of women who have built and sus­tained this or­gan­i­sa­tion over the decades and will con­tin­ue to sus­tain the blessed Syr­i­an Lebanese Women’s As­so­ci­a­tion for many more decades to come.”

A Year of Mean­ing­ful Im­pact

Through­out 2024, the SLWA re­mained stead­fast in its com­mit­ment to up­lift­ing com­mu­ni­ties, spear­head­ing sev­er­al ini­tia­tives that pos­i­tive­ly im­pact­ed in­di­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies across T&T.

* SLWA Feed­ing Pro­grammes: At the heart of SLWA’s mis­sion, the as­so­ci­a­tion de­liv­ered 60 month­ly food ham­pers to vul­ner­a­ble fam­i­lies. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, mem­bers pre­pared 300 hot meals for dis­placed peo­ple in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Love All Serve All.

* Ed­u­ca­tion­al & Com­mu­ni­ty Sup­port: The St Ann’s/Cas­cade Mo­ti­va­tion­al Pro­gramme en­gaged SLWA mem­bers in read­ing, paint­ing, as­sist­ing with com­put­er as­sign­ments, and bond­ing with stu­dents. The as­so­ci­a­tion al­so launched the Ba­by Tub Dri­ve, do­nat­ing 100 ba­by tubs filled with es­sen­tial items to moth­ers in need.

* Back-to-School As­sis­tance: The an­nu­al Back­pack Project pro­vid­ed 240 stu­dents with back­packs, lunch kits, and wa­ter bot­tles, en­sur­ing they were equipped for suc­cess at pri­ma­ry, sec­ondary, and ter­tiary lev­els.

* Women’s Wel­fare Ini­tia­tives: Recog­nis­ing the crit­i­cal need for con­tin­u­ous sup­port, the Pe­ri­od Panty Project and Hand­bag Project en­sured that women in the com­mu­ni­ty had ac­cess to es­sen­tial hy­giene and per­son­al care prod­ucts.

* Cul­tur­al Preser­va­tion & Aware­ness: The SLWA ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in school pre­sen­ta­tions show­cas­ing the his­to­ry and cul­ture of the Syr­i­an Lebanese com­mu­ni­ty, pro­vid­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for the pub­lic to en­gage in the arts and her­itage of the di­as­po­ra, fos­ter­ing greater ap­pre­ci­a­tion for its rich her­itage.

* An­nu­al Ham­per Pack­ing Project: The year con­clud­ed with SLWA’s flag­ship ini­tia­tive, where mem­bers came to­geth­er to pack and dis­trib­ute 1,800 ham­pers to fam­i­lies in need, em­body­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s core mis­sion of com­pas­sion and ser­vice.

* The as­so­ci­a­tion al­so con­tin­ued its valu­able part­ner­ship with Food­DROP in De­cem­ber, with mem­bers lend­ing un­wa­ver­ing sup­port to the ini­tia­tive.

* In 2024, SLWA con­tributed near­ly one mil­lion dol­lars to cit­i­zens of T&T in the ar­eas of med­ical aid, feed­ing ini­tia­tives, hous­ing as­sis­tance, and ed­u­ca­tion­al sup­port.

Re­flect­ing on SLWA’s en­dur­ing lega­cy, Mrs Hadeed em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of ho­n­our­ing the vi­sion of the as­so­ci­a­tion’s founders while em­brac­ing fu­ture op­por­tu­ni­ties:

“Sev­en­ty-five years ago, our founders dared to dream of an or­gan­i­sa­tion that would em­pow­er women and trans­form lives through ser­vice and com­pas­sion. To­day, we stand on the foun­da­tion they built with courage and vi­sion.”

As SLWA steps in­to its 75th year, pres­i­dent Hadeed reaf­firmed her com­mit­ment to ex­pand­ing ser­vice pro­grammes, strength­en­ing com­mu­ni­ty out­reach, and en­sur­ing that the SLWA re­mains a vi­brant force for good.

“Let us em­brace this mile­stone year as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to dream big, work bold­ly, and leave an even greater lega­cy for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.”

The SLWA ex­pressed heart­felt grat­i­tude to its mem­bers, donors, and the peo­ple of T&T for their un­wa­ver­ing trust and sup­port.