Krisann Be­dassie

There’s a South African Zu­lu proverb that says, “I am, be­cause we are.”

So, al­low me to in­tro­duce my­self. I am Krisann Be­dassie—proud­ly the first Trin­bag­on­ian ever ad­mit­ted to the Yale Young Glob­al Schol­ars (YYGS) pro­gramme. And be­cause of the gen­eros­i­ty of my fel­low cit­i­zens and friends across bor­ders, I am al­so the first to at­tend.

When my moth­er and I re­turned from the Unit­ed States, she told me many peo­ple would want to hear about my time at Yale. She ad­vised me to think care­ful­ly about how I would de­scribe it. I searched for the right word, scan­ning dic­tio­nar­ies with pre­ci­sion. On­ly one word fits: tran­scen­dent.

The path to Yale was not a far-fetched dream—it was made pos­si­ble by the over­whelm­ing sup­port of na­tion­als and in­ter­na­tion­al al­lies. I was not on­ly ex­cit­ed but ea­ger to ful­ly em­brace an op­por­tu­ni­ty I knew would broad­en my per­spec­tive on pol­i­tics, law, and eco­nom­ics.

The jour­ney be­gan with a flight to New York. There was tur­bu­lence, but any dis­com­fort fad­ed the mo­ment I glimpsed the con­crete sky­line. My moth­er and I were deeply grate­ful. This was the Amer­i­can dream in ac­tion—the be­lief that ed­u­ca­tion can take you any­where, and that hard work does pay off. We stayed in New York for a few days, even wit­ness­ing 4th of Ju­ly fire­works with a friend. While Amer­i­ca cel­e­brat­ed its In­de­pen­dence, I cel­e­brat­ed a mile­stone that could in­spire oth­er young schol­ars from Trinidad and To­ba­go.

When I fi­nal­ly ar­rived in New Haven, awe washed over me. This was Yale Uni­ver­si­ty, an Ivy League in­sti­tu­tion ranked among the world’s top ten. You could feel it in the air, and some­how, I felt smarter just by be­ing there.

The Col­le­giate Goth­ic ar­chi­tec­ture, with its red and warm-toned bricks, ex­udes time­less­ness. Walk­ing through the cam­pus felt like step­ping in­to an Ital­ian pi­az­za or the heart of Rome. The har­mo­nious sym­me­try and in­tri­cate de­tails lent the grounds a Re­nais­sance el­e­gance that no pho­to­graph could tru­ly cap­ture.

When my moth­er and our friends left me at Yale, I felt a flick­er of fear. I was an is­land girl, far from home, with­out my moth­er. But the feel­ing didn’t last. Strangers helped me with my lug­gage, my room­mates wel­comed me, and soon, I was con­nect­ing with peers from Mozam­bique, the Philip­pines, Nige­ria, Colom­bia, Ugan­da, and the Unit­ed States. Many be­came friends—girls who now feel like sis­ters, and boys who be­came broth­er­ly com­pan­ions.

I had cho­sen the Pol­i­tics, Law and Eco­nom­ics track, and it did not dis­ap­point. The lec­tures and sem­i­nars cov­ered thought-pro­vok­ing top­ics: hu­man rights, youth rep­re­sen­ta­tion in an age­ing Japan, ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence through an an­thro­po­log­i­cal lens, agri­cul­tur­al mi­cro­cre­d­it, and ter­ror­ism.

We de­bat­ed whether hu­man rights fo­cus more on help­ing the poor sur­vive than on cre­at­ing fair sys­tems. We ex­plored why pub­lic sup­port for young politi­cians of­ten fails to trans­late in­to votes. We ex­am­ined how AI can cre­ate an il­lu­sion of knowl­edge, and why falling pover­ty rates may re­main in­vis­i­ble due to pop­u­la­tion growth. We even con­front­ed the de­f­i­n­i­tion of ter­ror­ism, con­clud­ing that what looks, smells, and kills like ter­ror­ism is in­deed ter­ror­ism.

My favourite ses­sions were those on po­lit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy—delv­ing in­to mer­i­toc­ra­cy, free will, de­ter­min­ism, and the jus­tice sys­tem. These dis­cus­sions made me re­flect on my own coun­try. Trinidad and To­ba­go is brim­ming with po­ten­tial but too of­ten con­strained by nar­row think­ing and a lack of vi­sion. With the right lead­er­ship, re­al­is­tic goals, con­sis­tent ef­fort, and unit­ed sup­port, we can tru­ly rise.

Leav­ing with no re­grets

Say­ing good­bye was bit­ter­sweet. How can peo­ple you’ve known for on­ly two weeks be­come such an in­te­gral part of your life? As I packed my suit­case, I re­flect­ed on my time at YYGS and I had no re­grets. I em­braced every op­por­tu­ni­ty: I par­tic­i­pat­ed ful­ly in class­es, led my team to vic­to­ry in a de­bate, per­formed my spo­ken word piece “Lit­tle Is­land, Big Peo­ple” in the tal­ent show, pre­sent­ed on “Are Peo­ple Bad or Bro­ken?” in the Speak­er Se­ries, and ex­celled in my cap­stone projects.

Every step of the way, I was mind­ful that I would not be there with­out God’s guid­ance and the gen­eros­i­ty of oth­ers. I am the first Trin­bag­on­ian to at­tend Yale Young Glob­al Schol­ars be­cause we are a peo­ple for­ti­fied by courage and en­riched with com­pas­sion.

To every­one who con­tributed—whether in big or small ways—thank you. You have blessed me with an op­por­tu­ni­ty that has brought joy and wis­dom to my fam­i­ly and me. I vow to use what I have learned to serve Trinidad and To­ba­go and to make a pos­i­tive im­pact with every ac­tion I take.

To­geth­er we as­pire, and to­geth­er we achieve.