Mindful on Purpose

Welcome to the MINDFUL ON PURPOSE PODCAST where we explore taboo topics with innovators and experts working on the frontline to inform and inspire. In this episode, we will discuss the state of domestic violence in the Caribbean and specifically Trinidad and Tobago. Ms. Robinson is the founder of a women's domestic violence shelter in Trinidad. She will discuss some of her accomplishments, struggles, and action items first responders and clinicians can begin doing today to have a greater impact on vulnerable women and children. BIO Delores ‘Del’ Robinson, advocate, caregiver, counselor, policymaker, net-weaver, mother- hen, superwoman, organizer, these are some of the ‘labels’ given to her at the grassroots level. After over a decade of working in a Diplomatic Mission, in 2001 Delores went back to her roots – the women’s movement, where, for over thirty years she has been an active member, first with Sistren Theatre Collective of Jamaica; then with Women Working for Social Progress where she has been a member since 1988 and currently serves as a Council member with responsibility for Administration and Finance; and seven years with Advocates for Safe Parenthood; Improving Reproductive Equity (ASPIRE). She served as a Board member on a number of Non-Governmental Organisations including The Network of NGOs for the Advancement of Women of Trinidad & Tobago; Community Action Resource -CARe. Co-Chair for the Trinidad & Tobago Group of Professional Association (TTGPA) Social Outreach Committee. The UN Women CSW Committee of NGOs for Latin America and the Caribbean, (CoNGO CSW LAC) where she is currently Co-Vice Chair for the English-Speaking Caribbean. In February of 2018, she was elected Global Grassroots Women’s Representative on the Huairou Commission Governing Council. She is one of two NGO Co-Chairs for the Ministry of Health of T&T Mental Health & Psychosocial Services technical working group (MHPSS TWG) that was commissioned in May of 2020 to assist with Mental health issues coming out of the COVID 19 Pandemic. In September of 2021, she was appointed Board Member of the National AIDS Coordinating Committee (NACC) by the cabinet of the Republic Trinidad & Tobago. From 2007 to the present, Ms. Robinson has been a volunteer Cultural Liaison Officer with the Emancipation Support Committee of Trinidad and Tobago. She has extensive training in protocol and logistics, having volunteered her services for both CHOGM and the Summit of the Americas Conferences in Trinidad & Tobago, as well as Protocol Officer for arriving delegates to the Caribbean Regional Colloquium on Women in Leadership Conference in Trinidad & Tobago. In September of 2012, Delores was inducted as a Rotarian and in 2015 she became the second female President (in the Club’s 32-year history) of the Rotary Club of St. Augustine West. In 2016-17 she served as her Club’s first female and Trinidad and Tobago’s only female Assistant District Governor for Rotary District 7030. Delores is the Founder and Co-Director of Grassroots Organisations Operating Together in Sisterhood in Trinidad and Tobago (GROOTS T&T). In 2014, after realizing that her Caribbean grassroots sisters’ voices were not being heard at CSW, Del formed a group to ‘give voice to the voiceless’ at CSW. From 2015 to 2019 Caribbean Sisters in Unity Core Group (CSUCG) has been hosting parallel events at CSW conferences giving voice to the Caribbean Grassroots women. One of her landmark achievements in advocacy was her lobbying for Jamaican married women living outside of Jamaica to be able to pass their nationality on to their children. Delores would stop at nothing in her quest for such archaic law to be changed. She raised her concerns with Deputy and High Commissioners as well as the then Prime Minister. Today, her son is the first Caribbean recipient of Jamaican Citizenship via his mother as a married woman living outside of Jamaica. Host: Christina M. Blackburn, MS