Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Busi­ness­woman and phil­an­thropist Han­nah Janoura is en­cour­ag­ing so­ca artistes to col­lab­o­rate with non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions to help the vul­ner­a­ble, sim­i­lar to what Machel Mon­tano did by per­form­ing at her Car­ni­val fundrais­er event last Fri­day.

“My fundrais­er, every­body, when they heard Machel was singing, I got the crowd, and not on­ly that, I got the young peo­ple, which I nev­er had at my fundrais­er. And it’s go­ing to con­tin­ue, so next year it’s go­ing to be a big­ger fundrais­er,” Janoura ex­plained.

Part pro­ceeds of the mon­ey raised at the event, which was held at Mille Fleurs, Queen’s Park West, was con­tributed yes­ter­day to the Vi­tas House Hos­pice in St James. The rest, she said, will go to her an­nu­al wheel­chair dis­tri­b­u­tion dri­ve lat­er in the year.

The $100,000 cheque was hand­ed over to Can­cer So­ci­ety of T&T chair­man Robert Du­mas.

“One hun­dred thou­sand dol­lars will cer­tain­ly go a very long way. Han­nah Janoura over the years has been a pil­lar in the Can­cer So­ci­ety,” Du­mas said.

Janoura, whose name was placed on the Vi­tas House’s can­cer wall in 2009, said she hoped the con­tri­bu­tion could ex­pand the free 12-room hos­pice and raise aware­ness about the place that al­lows can­cer pa­tients to die with dig­ni­ty.

“So, we want to build it back up and we want a lot of peo­ple to know that we have this home for peo­ple who can­not af­ford a nurs­ing home and nurse care and stuff. This is why it is built, be­cause we do not charge any­body for stay­ing in the home,” she said.

Janoura be­lieves Mon­tano’s in­flu­ence will help spread what they do at Vi­tas House, and she hopes oth­er so­ca artistes will do the same.

“I re­al­ly hope that oth­ers see what he has done. They can come to me—I am will­ing to work with them,” she said.

The col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Janoura and Mon­tano will not end af­ter Car­ni­val. In fact, Janoura plans to as­sist Mon­tano with his ini­tia­tive of putting schools in pan and not just putting pan in schools.

The singer be­lieves the to­geth­er­ness this coun­try’s na­tion­al in­stru­ment brings can help curb crime.

“Be­cause here we are em­brac­ing com­mu­ni­ties. In this last week I went to All Stars pan yard, Rene­gades pan yard and I went to Ex­o­dus pan yard last night and tonight I’m go­ing to Siparia Del­tones and what I no­ticed is these are the on­ly things where the en­tire com­mu­ni­ty is com­ing out. Every­body just com­ing to­geth­er to hear the mu­sic and in­vest in a na­tion­al in­stru­ment,” Mon­tano said.

The ten-time Road March ti­tle­hold­er ex­plained that the re­al pull was when “each in­di­vid­ual plays to­geth­er to cre­ate one lov­ing song.”

Janoura and Mon­tano be­lieve that with their ac­cess and im­pact, this ini­tia­tive could work and bring more for­eign ex­change in­to the coun­try, as well as raise more funds.