Flow pushes digital skills drive in Cedros

Flow rolled in­to Ce­dros with a clear pitch to close the dig­i­tal gap and bring op­por­tu­ni­ty with­in reach.

The com­pa­ny host­ed its “Build­ing Fu­tures through In­clu­sive Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion” ini­tia­tive at the Ce­dros Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on April 18, pulling res­i­dents from Ce­dros and Ica­cos in­to a day of hands-on learn­ing and com­mu­ni­ty ac­tiv­i­ty.

Close to 200 peo­ple took part in ses­sions span­ning com­put­er lit­er­a­cy, cod­ing ba­sics, ro­bot­ics and in­no­va­tion. The work­shops, led by Smart­Term and El­e­vate Ed­u­ca­tion, fo­cused on prac­ti­cal skills par­tic­i­pants could use be­yond the class­room.

There was al­so a strong turnout from the Venezue­lan mi­grant com­mu­ni­ty, with or­gan­is­ers de­liv­er­ing two of the three work­shops in both Eng­lish and Span­ish to widen ac­cess.

“This ini­tia­tive re­flects who we are at Flow,” said Si­mone Mar­tin-Sul­gan, vice pres­i­dent and gen­er­al man­ag­er.

“We be­lieve that every in­di­vid­ual re­gard­less of back­ground de­serves ac­cess to op­por­tu­ni­ty. We are com­mit­ted to bring­ing ac­cess to dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy and un­lock­ing po­ten­tial in rur­al com­mu­ni­ties.

“We part­nered with El­e­vate Ed­u­ca­tion and the Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, two or­gan­i­sa­tions that are aligned with our goals to un­lock progress. We con­nect, care and com­mit to all of our com­mu­ni­ties across Trinidad and To­ba­go. Along­side the Lib­er­ty Caribbean Foun­da­tion, it is not on­ly about el­e­vat­ing our coun­try, but al­so about el­e­vat­ing our re­gion through in­clu­sive ini­tia­tives like these.”

Be­yond the work­shops, a com­mu­ni­ty fair added an­oth­er lay­er, with ses­sions on fi­nan­cial lit­er­a­cy, on­line bak­ing and fraud aware­ness led by rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion. Con­trib­u­tors in­clud­ed man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Ke­ston How­ell, along with fa­cil­i­ta­tors Shamir Sadler, Kim­ber­ly Moore and Jayme Hoyte of Smart­Term Lim­it­ed.

Flow framed the event as part of a wider push in­to un­der­served com­mu­ni­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly in south Trinidad, where it has backed schools with lap­tops, dig­i­tal up­grades and train­ing pro­grammes over the years.

“This work is deeply per­son­al for many of us,” said Yolande Agard-Sim­mons, se­nior man­ag­er of com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

“Our em­ploy­ees live and work in com­mu­ni­ties such as Ce­dros, Point Fortin and Fyz­abad. We un­der­stand first­hand the im­por­tance of ac­cess, op­por­tu­ni­ty and sup­port. And be­ing able to give back in this way is in­cred­i­bly mean­ing­ful and re­ward­ing.”

The com­pa­ny sig­nalled more out­reach ahead, po­si­tion­ing the Ce­dros event as a start­ing point rather than a one-off.

“This is just the be­gin­ning. We are not on­ly con­nect­ing com­mu­ni­ties—we are build­ing fu­tures,” Mar­tin-Sul­gan said.