Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor–News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

For 15-year-old Jay­da Ram­jat­tan, the en­vi­ron­ment is more than a cause—it’s a way of life. From act­ing and po­et­ry to pageantry and ac­tivism, her pas­sions all cir­cle back to one cen­tral theme: pro­tect­ing the earth.

It may run in the fam­i­ly.

“My mom’s first de­gree is in botany and bio­chem­istry. She was a mem­ber of the Wild­fowl Trust and al­ways prac­ticed sus­tain­able liv­ing. Be­fore I was born, she was al­ready in­volved in con­ser­va­tion, and it just be­came part of me. As I got old­er, I took up the man­tle and ran with it,” Ram­jat­tan told WE Mag­a­zine in a re­cent in­ter­view.

Her par­ents raised her with en­er­gy con­ser­va­tion and sus­tain­able prac­tices, and she proud­ly calls her­self an en­vi­ron­men­tal­ist.

“I grew up with this lifestyle,” she ex­plained. “It’s who I am.”

This week, Ram­jat­tan trav­elled to In­dia to rep­re­sent T&T at the Miss Teen In­dia World­wide pageant. Even on that stage, her mis­sion re­mains clear: to ad­vo­cate for a clean­er, health­i­er plan­et.

“I’m a youth, and I can make a dif­fer­ence,” she said. “I can let my voice be heard, and I want to do some­thing about the en­vi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges we face.”

A young am­bas­sador

De­spite her age, Ram­jat­tan’s ré­sumé al­ready reads like that of a sea­soned ad­vo­cate. She has served as a Unicef Child Rights Am­bas­sador, a Na­tion­al Youth Am­bas­sador, a HEY Caribbean Am­bas­sador pro­mot­ing healthy en­vi­ron­ments for youth, and a Re­new­able En­er­gy Youth Am­bas­sador.

Among her many projects, she high­lights her “lit­tle lend­ing li­braries” ini­tia­tive, which en­cour­aged sus­tain­able liv­ing by re­cy­cling books with­in com­mu­ni­ties.

“It was about show­ing out-of-the-box ways com­mu­ni­ties can come to­geth­er and live sus­tain­ably,” she ex­plained.

Her art, too, car­ries an en­vi­ron­men­tal mes­sage. She cre­ates pieces from sin­gle-use plas­tics and oth­er dis­pos­able items. No­tably, three of her works—an an­gelfish, jel­ly­fish, and sea­horse made from dis­card­ed masks—were dis­played un­der the ro­tun­da of Par­lia­ment.

Pageantry as a plat­form

Now, in In­dia, Ram­jat­tan plans to use pageantry to am­pli­fy her ad­vo­ca­cy. “I start­ed work­ing with the Palmiste Park Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Project, where we held a big cleanup, re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed the pond, and rein­tro­duced lo­cal bio­di­ver­si­ty. Pageantry gave me the plat­form to high­light these caus­es,” she said.

Her trip to In­dia is both pro­fes­sion­al and deeply per­son­al. “I’ll be able to vis­it the coun­try where my an­ces­tors came from as in­den­tured labour­ers. They made such an in­deli­ble mark on our cul­ture, and now I get to vis­it In­dia, our moth­er­land, to ex­pe­ri­ence their cul­ture and share ours with them.”

Look­ing ahead

A stu­dent at Par­vati Girls’ Hin­du Col­lege, Ram­jat­tan is prepar­ing to study the sci­ences in the new aca­d­e­m­ic year. Her long-term goal is to be­come a bio­med­ical en­gi­neer, de­sign­ing pros­thet­ics and syn­thet­ic or­gans to help peo­ple af­fect­ed by war or trau­ma.

But for now, she is fo­cused on bal­anc­ing her aca­d­e­mics with her ad­vo­ca­cy. She al­so has a mes­sage for oth­er teenagers: “There are so many av­enues to pur­sue your in­ter­ests. Don’t let any­thing hold you back. Be­lieve in your­self. Ex­plore life. Find some­thing you’re pas­sion­ate about, and pur­sue it with every­thing you have. That’s what brings joy, peace, and self-de­vel­op­ment.”

Ram­jat­tan is de­ter­mined to live by that phi­los­o­phy. While lift­ing her­self, she is equal­ly com­mit­ted to lift­ing up those around her. Her jour­ney, she hopes, will in­spire her peers to be­lieve that they too can make a dif­fer­ence.

“I want to make sure that when I rep­re­sent Trinidad and To­ba­go, I fly our flag high,” she said with a smile. “And I want to show the world that young peo­ple can lead the change we need.”