Your world with Dr. Beatrice Hyppolite
Hello,
I am Dr. Marie Beatrice Hyppolite. I hold a doctorate in Health Science with emphasis on Global Health and master’s degree in social work. I have over 14 years of experience in the field of health and human services.
This podcast is primarily focused on mental health and the quality-of-life elements that affect it such as divorce, death, domestic violence, trauma, toxic relationships, and single parenthood to name a few. It is no secret that mental health challenges continue to profoundly impact modern society although not enough discussion is given due to stigma. Research has shown an increase of 25 % in mental health crises after COVID-19. It is important to have honest, uncomfortable conversations about mental health while being supportive. Although we are interdependent, change begins with the individual, hence “your world.”
I welcome you to join me on my journey and look forward to your responses.
Your world with Dr. Beatrice Hyppolite
Caribbean Legacy: Building Futures Through Art and Education
From a small federation in the Eastern Caribbean comes a powerful story of four professionals determined to give back to their homeland. Michele Rannie joins us to share the inspiring journey of the La Amiga O'Ali Arts Foundation (LOAF), an organization building bridges between cultural celebration and educational opportunity.
Founded by four St. Kitts and Nevis natives who migrated to New York, LOAF's mission transcends simple philanthropy. The name itself—combining indigenous terms for the islands—creates an acronym that perfectly captures their purpose: to nourish both Caribbean culture abroad and educational opportunities at home. As Michele explains, their approach centers on selecting promising students who face financial barriers, providing them with comprehensive support through private high school education.
What makes LOAF remarkable is their holistic vision. Beyond simply paying tuition, they're creating a support system that includes mentorship, resources, and ongoing encouragement. The foundation represents a beautiful cycle of opportunity, as all four directors benefited from private education in their youth and now work to extend those same advantages to a new generation.
Our conversation reveals how deeply personal this work is for Michele and her co-directors. When she speaks about legacy—asking "what will you be remembered for?"—we understand that LOAF embodies their answer to this profound question. They're building something that extends far beyond their own achievements, creating pathways for Caribbean youth to realize their full potential.
The foundation is hosting a panel discussion on April 17th in New York City exploring Caribbean migration experiences while raising funds for their educational initiatives. If their passion inspires you as it did me, visit www.loafskn.org to learn how you can support their vision of creating educational opportunities while celebrating the rich cultural heritage of St. Kitts and Nevis.
Hello everyone. I'm Dr Beatrice Ippolit, and this is your World. Hello everyone, hello, hello. How are you? Thank you for having me. Yeah, today it's a privilege to have you. You for having me. Yeah, today it's a privilege to have you. Though, you know, today we're gonna change a little bit the nature of the show. We normally meet to discuss about a specific subject. You know it's either on mental health or mental health related. Even with the work that you do, I can still find a way to plug mental health into it, because when you assist people, when you provide for other people, in a way, you help them alleviate stress and anxiety. That's the approach that I personally gave to it. So we have with us Michelle Wani. Did I say your name right? Yes, very good. Michelle is a lawyer, but today nobody is in trouble, so we're not going to talk about what she does as a lawyer, but we want to talk about her organization, yes, so how are you doing?
Speaker 2:I'm very well. Thank you for taking the time and giving us this opportunity to talk about La Amiga O'Ali Arts Foundation. La Amiga O'Ali Arts Foundation is a foundation started by four professionals who were born in St Kitts and Nevis. St Kitts and Nevis is a tiny federation in the Eastern Caribbean. Nevis, st Kitts and Nevis, is a tiny federation in the Eastern Caribbean.
Speaker 2:We migrated from St Kitts and Nevis to the United States, settled in New York all four of us and we came together and wondered how can we one, celebrate the arts and culture of St Kitts and Nevis here in New York and, two, how can we use that celebration to give back?
Speaker 2:And in the way that we will give back is to fund academic fellowships for young people who are coming from sixth grade and entering into high school.
Speaker 2:So what we will do is fund fellowships for two children, one on St Kitts and one on Nevis, and we will be putting them through high school. And all four of the directors myself, jackie Woodley, tal Batis and Neoka Gumbs all of us are the beneficiaries of private high school education in St Kitts and Nevis and we wanted to pay it forward, and we know the benefits of having been through private high school in the Caribbean and we wanted to give other children the opportunity to do that. We're starting small with two children, but our hope is that over time we can expand that to more than just two children and not just expand it beyond two children, but expand it to the point where we're not just funding them through high school, we're funding them through college and by bringing them out to either United States, canada or England and putting them through college. So that's visionary. That's where we're headed to, but for now, our first scholarships will be in September of 2025.
Speaker 1:Oh, that will be your first, that will be our very first.
Speaker 2:We're going through the process right now of selecting two children and once we do hopefully we can, we could not hopefully we will be enrolling them in private high school, one on Sink it and one on Evis.
Speaker 1:Before we even go any further into that, the name of the organization. Is there any issue behind it or did you come up with that?
Speaker 2:name. It's actually it's name. It's actually, it's serendipitous, because La Amiga is the indigenous name for Sinkit. So before, as I'm sure you know, before the colonizers came to the Caribbean, the islands were populated by indigenous people. So before we were Sinkits, we were La Amiga. We were named La Amiga by the indigenous people on the island, the Caribs and the Arawaks, and so we chose to celebrate that name La Amiga, which means fertile land, and Oali Fonides, which means land of beautiful waters.
Speaker 2:And we put those two words together with Arts Foundation, and the acronym is LOAF, and LOAF means we're feeding, right. So we're using the names La Amiga, o'hare, arts Foundation to show that our objective is to feed. So we're not just feeding the children at home through these fellowships that we hope to fund, but we also will be feeding the Kittitians and the Nivisions and, by extension, the Caribbean people here who will come to these events that we are staging here in New York to celebrate the arts and culture of St John.
Speaker 1:Ines, you just taught me something new, thank you, but how long has that love been around?
Speaker 2:We became formally incorporated in February of 2023. So we're relatively young, but we have big hearts and we have big vision. And so, even though we're young, we've been doing quite a bit. In our first year, we donated laptops to high school students at home. We had a meet and greet where we brought people from the Caribbean who reside here in New York. We gathered them together just to get to know each other and say, hey, yes, we live here in New York, but we have this shared identity, this shared culture. Later on, we had a walk-a-ton where we raised funds by gathering Kittish and Zanavisians and asking them to walk with us, and they walked with us throughout the promenade along the Hudson River. We did that and then the money we raised we donated to the Miss Talented Teen for St Kitts and Nevis, who won in December of 2023.
Speaker 2:And then after that, we've had celebrations for poetry. We've had just recently, in December, we had Loaf Given where we came together and we celebrated poetry. So we are celebrating the arts, but through celebration of the arts, we're raising funds. Our main objective is the children that we're going to be supporting through fellowships and, most importantly, and actually the reason we're here today to talk about is because on April 17th in New York City we're going to have a panel discussion. So this is our first attempt to do something a little bit more substantive, and by that I mean we are going to gather four panelists together in New York City on April 17th, it's gonna be in the form of a fundraising.
Speaker 2:Well, the admission is free because we want to open it up. We think that the topic is important enough to allow anyone who wants to come to sit down and be a part of our panel discussion. So the admission is free, but we're saying that, yes, it's free, but here's an opportunity for you to donate. It's free, but here's an opportunity for you to donate and the reason where, when you do donate, you're donating to the fellowships that we hope to that we are going to be funding for the children in September of this year, but the panel discussion is going to be on the topic the migration of Caribbean nationals to the Global North, a Transnational Experience and on our panel will be Do you?
Speaker 1:want me to tell you no before you even go to your panel. So talking about funding, so where is most of your funding? Where that comes from.
Speaker 2:Right now we are partnering with. So, in addition to the events that we've hosted, at those events this is one of our first free admission events, the one we did in December of last year we charged a fee to enter. We had a poet who came and who performed, and that was a really good opportunity for us to raise a little bit of money. But in addition to that, what we're doing is partnering with. We have right now and he's actually featured on our website he's the son of a ketician doctor and he started his own mortgage financing company, so he has come on board as a partner for us. The company name is Orman Shapp. So those are the kinds of things that we are doing. We are partnering with corporations and we are also hosting these events that celebrates the arts and culture of St Kitts and Nevis. And for most of the events not the panel discussion that's coming up in April, but for most of the events we will recharge a fee for people to attend.
Speaker 1:I understand at the beginning of the show I told everybody that you were a lawyer, but didn't really get into deeper into that in the organization. So what's your position?
Speaker 2:We come on board as four co-equal co-founders. So we don't have a president or vice president. We see each other as partners in this. We have because of our skillset. So let me just tell, the co-directors are Myself, tal Batis he's an English professor at CUNY in the city. We have Jackie Woodley, who's an architect at the MTA in the city, and we have Neoka Gumbs, who's also an architect. So we pull from each person's skill set.
Speaker 2:For example, one of the major what's going to be our signature event is something called the Sugar Experience, which we are putting plans in place for later in the year. And the Sugar Experience is where we're going to gather keticians and divisions and people from around the Caribbean who live in the United States, who live in New York, and we're going to say this is our culture, this is the music we listen to, this is the dance we dance. We're introducing this culture to the world, and so for that requires a sort of artistic flair. The artists amongst us, their talents, will be featured. I have a skill set that's legal, so I'm an organizational. That my skill set. So when that is required then I step up to the plate. But we see each other more or less as co-equal partners in this. So there's no leader per se, but there are times when certain persons lead based on what their area of expertise is.
Speaker 1:Okay, now tell us more about the upcoming event.
Speaker 2:Okay. So the panel discussion is going to be on April 17th at 6 pm and it's going to be at 540 East 76th Street, new York, new York, and so we're asking everybody even though it's a free admission, we're asking everyone if you intend on coming, please go on to our website, wwwloafsknorg, at the events tab and sign up, because we want to know who's coming. We have a limited space, so we want to know, once we've reached that um limit to be able to say okay, we can't accept any more persons beyond this amount, you know if you don't mind, can you repeat the website for all the viewers?
Speaker 1:thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you for your generosity. Um, it's wwwloafsknorg dot l-o-a-f-s-k-n dot o-r-g. And to sign up is backslash events. So you just go to the events tab and it's right there. You sign up, you give us your email address and let us know that you're coming so that we can prepare for you and we can know that you're coming. But we think it's going to be intellectually stimulating. It's topical, it's timely. We're going to have Her Excellency Jacint Henry Martin, who's the ambassador for St Kitts and Nevis to the United States. She has been a champion of law from the very beginning and, because she sees herself very artistic and a lover of the arts, she's a poet, a published poet, and she, you know, speaks multiple languages, and so she she has always been a champion of what our objectives and our aims are it's always a wonderful thing to encourage and embrace those who wants to give back.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes, yes. So she has done that. The government and people of St Kitts and Nevis have welcomed us and welcomed what we've been doing. In addition to that, we have His Excellency David Commission, and David Commission, he's also an attorney, but he's from Barbados and he's the ambassador for Barbados to CARICOM, and he's a luminary, an intellectual. He talks deeply about these important topics, and so he's going to bring a richness to the conversation that we know is going to be unprecedented, and so we're really looking forward to having him on the panel discussion. We have Dr June Suma, who's very well known throughout the Caribbean, a luminary, a deep intellectual. She's also chair of the United Nations Permanent Forum for People of African Descent and she's from St Lucia, just really passionate about these topics, and so she's going to come enriching the panel discussion. Then we're going to have Dr Teo and this is up here Dr Hippolyte, this is going to be something you are interested in.
Speaker 2:I know you're thinking about coming, but Dr Teal Carlo Strong, he's a psychiatrist and he has his own practice in Connecticut, and the reason we thought that we would bring him on is because the whole notion of migrating is such a fundamental shift.
Speaker 2:It is, you know, you make a decision, having lived in the place where you were born, to uproot and to move someplace else, and usually what's propelling that decision is that you're thinking that you could educate yourself, you could be better for your family, you could pull up your family, you could economically support them, you know. So you make this huge decision and then you move, and some of us, we move into environments well, most of us, because we're coming from the Caribbean. We move to environments where the language may be different, the culture is certainly different, the weather is different, different, the educational requirements are different, and what does that mean for us as Caribbean people? How difficult is that and what is that process like? And so what, dr Strong? We invited him on the panel because we wanted to hear the science of it, not for us to get into an emotive.
Speaker 1:This is how I feel about it even though that's valid, you know, even with all those challenges that you just mentioned, but we still. You know, when we come, we pull up our sleeves and do the work.
Speaker 2:Amen, yeah, exactly, and that's what we want to celebrate. We want to shift the conversation to focus on the positive of who we are as people, as Caribbean people. My mom, I was telling you before we started this interview.
Speaker 1:Basically, so you want to create that platform to tell people who you are, who we are, because you know it's so beautiful. You cannot just sit there and let people determine who you are coming from, where you came from me as being an Asian person, or all the people from different Caribbean countries. You know just, you know people to use the ego or madness or craziness to define us. So it's like I love that idea. You know to have that sit down and, hey, you know what? Let me tell you, let me educate you on who I am, who we are who we are.
Speaker 2:I was I started telling you before, before we started the interview, actually two Sundays ago, on the 30-year passing of my mother.
Speaker 1:So sorry to hear that.
Speaker 2:Thank you. And she migrated after she had married her husband. My father passed away, she had children, she had grandchildren and she just decided, as a grown woman, that she was going to make a change. And she did, and she made this incredible decision that impacted not only my generation but my daughter's generation and my daughter's children in the future. You know, um worked hard. She came here, um just just worked really hard. Uh, before she, before she died, uh, at her funeral, my brothers and sisters, we were sitting on and saying we have no excuse, because this woman, who had very little uh built you know, she owned a home she did her thing. And we were saying we're looking at each other, we were like we have no excuse, no excuse, we have no excuse. And and and actually, when I thought of love, Because you know.
Speaker 1:So that's what we call a role model.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness that's what we call empowering.
Speaker 1:So, it's like by doing that she empowered all of you to be better. To be better, because all the sacrifices that she made along the way was to improve your lives.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that is who we are At the end of the, and that is who we are At the end of the day. That is who we are and that's what we want to celebrate. That's what we want to celebrate. We want to say look, this is who we are, and even if we don't become doctor, lawyer, engineer, you know, when we're growing up, that's the standard for us that's the standard become doctor, lawyer, engineer.
Speaker 1:You know when we're growing up. That's the standard for us. That's the standard.
Speaker 2:And trust me, you know your country is not alone.
Speaker 1:No, exactly, back home is the same. So every parent, you know, kind of like, aspires, so you know, for their kids to become doctor, engineer, lawyer. So those three professions seem to be the only professions that they knew.
Speaker 2:They knew, but that's what they wanted for us, you know, because they wanted better for us. But what we are also celebrating at LOAF is this simple person who wake up every day, go to that job, show up on time, save their money, put their children to school Do you know what I mean? And try to build up. And I'm not saying that that is exclusive to Caribbean people, that's. You know that that's true for a whole different groups of people across the globe. But I'm saying I know this because this is where I'm from and I want, I feel this responsibility to let the world know our beauty, our dignity, our excellence, or that is who we are as people.
Speaker 1:Hey man, I thought you were only a lawyer. It seemed that you could be a pastor too.
Speaker 2:I'm telling you, I could tell you that my faith is very much a part of who I am and it propels. It's well said. Yes, well said it propels everything about what we do, what we're trying to achieve at love.
Speaker 1:Okay so, but how many people that you are helping? Is there a specific amount of kids that you're helping?
Speaker 2:well, for now, right now, because we're, you know, we just started and we're just getting things together. We again with that sort of mindset of caribbean people you start small, you start well, you start small, you. You have an aim of excellence and in order to do that well, we're starting with two children, but once we we plan to steadily grow that over time, so that two children this year, but high school level, high school level high school level, high school level.
Speaker 2:high school level I don't like the term, necessarily at risk, but what? The child who we will select for the low scholarship is a child whose family is in need. So this child would have great potential for academic excellence. But at the point where we select the child, maybe he's not getting the best. He or she may not be getting the best grades because their family situation is not the best, Right Um. So what we will do is come in as a support. So we will not just be paying their tuition. We will take the child into our embrace. We will be meeting with them on a regular basis. We will be getting their report cards. The teachers will know who we are.
Speaker 1:So you basically want to give that a holistic approach.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, we're going to become involved in the child's life and, of course, you know, in partnership with the parents and the family and hopefully, because there's so many I mean I again, because she was so seminal in my life my mother made a decision when we were children that she wanted to put us through private school because she saw the benefits of that. She wanted to put us through private school because she saw the benefits of that.
Speaker 1:And even you know, I look back and see how revolutionary that decision was, because it's just like private school, not Catholic school. It's actually a Catholic school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a private Catholic school. We called it St Teresa's Common School back then. It now has a different name, but actually the child that we select we will be enrolling in that very school.
Speaker 1:Oh yes.
Speaker 2:So we would be enrolling them in that very school. So two of the founding directors of Lowe's.
Speaker 1:But what are the main criteria, you know, to have a child?
Speaker 2:enrolled Potential for academic excellence. So we're going to work with the teachers to help us select. Maybe on paper they're not getting all as, but the teacher could say to us that child has the potential for greatness, but they're just not performing at the optimum ability right now because of their family circumstances or maybe their community circumstances. And so we're going to say, okay, well, this child we will take under our care and we will raise them up to be all that they can be, which is, you know, all that anybody ever really wants. Right For somebody to see your value and say, yes, we believe in you and we're going to follow you through to graduation of high school. For now, that's the plan Graduation from high school and then, once they've graduated high school, hopefully by then we would have built up ourselves enough that we could say we'll bring you here to college. And every year. What's important is that every year we'll be selecting two. So this year we select two. In 2026, we will select two, unless we have gotten ourselves Boys and girls.
Speaker 2:Boys and girls. So it's not necessarily we're looking for a boy or a girl. We're looking for academic um prowess, um their potential to excel academically and um financial need their. Their family can't afford to put this child through private school, and so, and truth be told, the public school situation at home is actually quite good too.
Speaker 2:St Kitts has a very good educational system. So even the public school, their education is probably comparable or maybe even in some respects higher than the private school. But the reason we want the private school is because for us we know what it did when you're in a small classroom and you have that one-on-one attention. The education might be better in a public school. But in the public school you have so many more children, not to say that the children, the teachers, are not doing a fabulous job there. But we're saying we want to put them in a sort of incubator type environment where that child now has the opportunity to flourish under the care of a teacher who gives them one-on-one sort of because all four members of the organization you know went to private school and you have seen the benefit always and you want other kids to have the same experience and privileges, exactly, and that.
Speaker 2:And we're building legacy. You know we're building legacy. You know we're building legacy. I mean as human beings. There's a certain part of your life where you're building for yourself, right, You're building your family, you're building your career, you're building your net worth, you know. But at a certain point, what is your legacy? What is your legacy? What will not be remembered? What will you be remembered for? And so the four of us, the four directors at Lowe, we are sitting there and thinking, okay, let this be our legacy, Let, when someone talks about us 30 years from now, they can say well, that group actually started this. The celebration of the arts and culture of St Kitts and Nevis was put on a platform where we could say here's the Met, where culture is celebrated on Fifth Avenue in New York. Well, here's love and the Kittishen and the vision. Culture is actually on par with that. You know, we are saying this is valuable and we're telling the world that you know, that's what we're doing Basically.
Speaker 1:So I know it's like. Certain family, you know, may not have the financial means to put their kids in a private school. Oftentimes they may not even have the financial means to feed them properly. So does your organization tend to look through this as well.
Speaker 2:Yes, what we're doing right now is we're working. So we went through this process where we selected two people on the islands who are going to be our eyes and ears. So they're going to tell us this child needs x or this child needs a little bit more support in that way, and, um, yes, so we're looking at uniforms, because the private schools will need uniforms. We're going to be helping them with a laptop, we're going to be helping them with their books and, in our ways, we're going to be touching base with them in terms of well, how's your grade? How are you doing in this class? Do you need any sort of support from us or any? You know what? What can we do to help? So our whole objective will be to usher this child into their full potential, in whatever way we can yeah when you say that you're gonna issue each of them a laptop.
Speaker 1:Laptop are very pricey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you know, to be truthful, I think there's like a program in place right now where the government provides that already sometimes, and some I have to verify that, but they do that on the island. But we will be doing that in addition to what they get from in other spaces.
Speaker 1:It sounds like good you know, and I hope you know, like you know a lot of people you know, can make it that day, though I understand Ms Wani said you don't have to pay a dime to register. However, if you do make it to the event, know that it is a fundraising and she just explained the cause, the mission and the vision of the organization. Bring something. It doesn't have to be $1,000. It doesn't have to be $500. You know, even if you have a twenty dollars, a fifty dollars, a one hundred dollars, you know, regardless of the amount that you can take with you that day, you know, don't miss it thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:So, april 17th at 6 pm okay, so any additional thing that? You know, I mean just to say thank you for giving us this opportunity for me to be talking about loaf. As you can see, it's a passion of mine. I really care deeply about how we represent our people in the global north not just the United States, but Canada and England and we're going to do everything we can to enhance and just introduce people to who we really are.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's together go to that event and support love. Thank you, thank you so much. That said you know. So we put an end for today to the show and it was a pleasure to be with you all. It was with you, dr beatrice, with your world.