Richard Sutherland Wells (RSW) Foundation
The year Richard Sutherland Wells left the physical world, Boko Haram killed more than 6,000 people with mass abductions, and facilitated the kidnapping of 276 school girls from Chibok, Nigeria. It was April, 2014.
One month later, on May 3rd, Wells passed away in a motor vehicle accident in Peru while he and Camille were being driven en route to Machu Picchu.
Today his wife, Camille Sears-Carter Wells, is connecting these two stories into a legacy of love and inspiration in the name of the business he built, Havana Hut Ci**rs Limited.
The Richard Sutherland Wells (RSW) Foundation, a work in progress, will dedicate funding inter alia towards research and information towards the eradication of Human Trafficking, locally, regionally and internationally.
Says Sears, “I remember giving Richard his coffee every morning during this time in world history, and I could see the anger and angst on his face as he watched the story unfold. We talked about it a lot at the time, he wanted to make a difference, to these girls, and all people who were being trafficked.”
Months later Wells was gone and three years after that, Sears felt ready to launch a renaissance of Havana Hut Ci**rs Limited, a company he formed with partner Ian Ho-a-Shu in 1999, with branches in St. Ann’s, Port of Spain Trinidad and Tobago and Chattel Village Hole Town Barbados.
Ian already had the business moving as a niche market, “suitcase trade,” and together they turned it into a bona fide business.
It also turned a hobby into a risk that quickly returned a lucrative and thriving income in Trinidad and Tobago in the early years of 2000.
Carnival Friday, 2017 marked the day Sears reopened this renewed venture, and it has been a learning curve and a labour of love since.
The Trinidad and Tobago arm of the business had been lying fallow (agricultural term for giving the land time to heal) in the years following Wells’ higher calling and in 2016 Camille felt ready to rise.
The inspiration for the RSW Foundation is beautifully and simply this.
“I would like to rebuild Havana Hut Ci**rs Limited (Trinidad) into the profit-making venture of its early years,” says Sears. “Then dedicate surplus funds towards the RSW Foundation. I want to contribute to the eradication, and information assimilation that targets the root of this world-wide issue, starting of course, with local concerns.”
It’s a tall order, and it matches the stature of the man himself, a man who made tall orders and lived up to them.
Havana Hut Ci**rs Limited a company, a passion, a hobby began in 1999 when a mutual friend introduced Wells to Ho-a-Shu, upon his return from Cuba.
Today with the strong and consistent loyalty and unwavering support of Jordan James, Manager of the Trinidad store who has been with Wells and Ho-a-Shu since its inception, the business is an exclusive outfit, offering custom-made, top quality ci**rs for the connoisseur and the casual smoker.
The goal is to grow, develop, expand the business, while engaging with customers; and to continue to learn and share more about this eclectic world of ci**rs, its history and process, in order to strengthen the bond of loyal clients and attract new ones into a network devoted to change.
“You smoke a cigarette, and savor a cigar,” says Wells, “and I try to create a spiritual and relaxing experience, a place to release.”
Over twenty years, the business would evolve, and later, struggle, with to***co license, cigar distribution and quality control standards as critical issues that slowed down the business, in order to keep it right and in-line.
Located just before Hotel Normandie in St. Ann’s, Trinidad and Tobago, on the right-hand side of barely a street, is a building that looks like a Train. Inside is redecorated to represent more Cuban street-life, less traditional English smoke bar; more specialty social connoisseur, less Trini ‘feter/limer;’ more individual consumer.
Mixed in with this incredible story of the company and Camille Sears-Carter Wells, is a colleague and friend, Jordan James, in a business that ties them together, with a bond that goes deeper than words, or money, or ci**rs. That bond is Richard.
Inside, on any given day, and every given day, for the last
19 years you will find James, host of this intimate establishment that is off the beaten track both in spirit and in product.
The establishment offers a small, curated inventory exclusive to its present clientele. It also offers only top-rated products, at premium prices, serviced directly from suppliers in Cuba, Nicaragua, Honduras, The Dominican Republic and over the years, has also seen some European brands, from The Netherlands and Turkey.
However, what has not changed over time, is the exclusive and high-grade product.
Having seen many metamorphoses with this business in Trinidad, and up the islands, Richard Wells and Jordan James, in the early 2,000s serviced many outlets throughout Trinidad’s eastern, central and southern regions and in Tobago.
This slowed eventually for a number of reasons. In recent years, the To***co License strengthened in establishment, as did competition from other outlets.
They decided to be selective with wholesale clients and to be committed to specialized service and quality.
When Camille talks about Richard, you can hear her tone change from business woman to loving wife, in the softness of her voice, as she speaks of her love, her mentor and her inspiration.
Though her voice strengthens again when she says, “his partner Ian called him, ‘Pitt Bull Wells’ for his voracious tendency to never let something fail; no stone left unturned.”
Richard and Camille met in the late 90s in Havana, Cuba, and worked as clients with each other in separate ventures, until marrying in a small, impromptu and romantic, ceremony at Solimar Restaurant Havana Hut’s neighbour in 2003, hosted by the late Chef extraordinaire Joe Brown.
Having worked together prior, CW remembers defending RW to her boss at the Export Import Bank when Well’s cigar venture was being assessed as a business for services with Exim (Export Import Bank of Trinidad and Tobago Limited) where Sears was Marketing Manager at the time.
“Mr. Mike, let me tell you something,” recalls Sears. “The man you know as Mr. Richard Wells, is a man of integrity and honesty and a serious business man. He is neither spoilt nor entitled. He comes from somewhere and he is going somewhere. And if this business was to fail tomorrow, I can assure you that he will sell the shirt off his back to remunerate The Exim Bank.”
Little did she know that through those words, she was fighting for herself in the future, as they had not yet dated at this point.
In this future, the Richard Sutherland Wells Foundation turns its eyes towards Human Trafficking through a charitable cause with a fight not only to honour the footprints of its namesake but to give hope and dignity to survivors of this worldwide scourge.
Havana Hut Ci**rs Limited opens its doors to a new adventure and you are invited to come along.
