Born the tenth of 12 chil­dren, David Kaleb Ab­dool al­ways had the eyes of the Lord fo­cused on him while he had his mind and heart set on the Lord as well.

When Agnes and Farouk Ab­dool adopt­ed David at age three-and-a-half year old, they gave him a new op­por­tu­ni­ty at life. But not even them could tell what God had des­tined for him. The Ab­dools, whom he calls mom and dad, have four adult chil­dren, three girls and one boy.

From left, Farouk and Agnes Abdool with their children.

One year lat­er, David lost the on­ly grand­fa­ther he knew that lived with him. Four months lat­er he lost a very close un­cle. The day af­ter his un­cle's fu­ner­al, his broth­er Ka­reem suf­fered a mas­sive heart at­tack. Ka­reem was hos­pi­talised for three months in crit­i­cal care and then sent home. All the at­ten­tion went from the young, play­ful David to tak­ing care of Ka­reem who suf­fered a hy­pox­ic brain in­jury. Hav­ing been in and out of the hos­pi­tal, Ka­reem passed away af­ter sev­en months.

David's life be­came a whirl­wind at such a ten­der age. Hav­ing suf­fered the loss of three very close male fig­ures, this did not de­ter David from a suc­cess­ful fu­ture.

At 11 David start­ed go­ing with his par­ents to their busi­ness in Trinci­ty Mall every week­end where he would in­ter­act and sell to cus­tomers. When giv­en a school walk-a-ton sheet, in a cou­ple of days he would col­lect $1,000 plus in do­na­tions sin­gle-hand­ed­ly and sub­mit to his class teacher. Af­ter ob­serv­ing his fam­i­ly busi­ness, Kaleb knew from a very young age that he want­ed to be a busi­ness­man. He al­so had a pas­sion for preach­ing.

He would buy juice and sell it to his friends at the mall. He would al­so make bags of chow to sell at the mall dur­ing the week­ends. When COVID-19 start­ed his small busi­ness was forced to shut down; The mall was closed to the pub­lic and he no longer had cus­tomers. His par­ents en­rolled him in lessons class over the hol­i­days to keep him oc­cu­pied and to help him with his school­work on­line. Church­es were al­so closed and this gave him the time to fo­cus on his preach­ing. He would pre­pare a word and car­ry on a ser­vice by him­self for his fam­i­ly at home.

His de­sire for busi­ness was still there. When he heard of an As­so­ci­a­tion of Busi­ness Ex­ec­u­tive en­dorsed KidsM­BA pro­gramme from CTS Col­lege of Busi­ness and Com­put­er Sci­ence Ltd in Ch­agua­nas, for chil­dren be­tween 11 to 17, he was hap­py to reg­is­ter. The pro­gramme was in­tense. At the end of the pro­gramme, all of the 17 kids in the third co­hort of the pro­gramme did a Shark Tank pre­sen­ta­tion. The top five were se­lect­ed and from there they picked a win­ner.

It was not sur­pris­ing when David was se­lect­ed in the top five. He did his pre­sen­ta­tion and took part in a ques­tion-and-an­swer seg­ment where they were judged. David got top marks for his at­tire in his fi­nal pre­sen­ta­tion and this young man of God won the chal­lenge, plac­ing first.

De­spite his many chal­lenges David has proven over and over that once you put Christ first in your life, any­thing you put your mind to and work to­wards you can achieve it. David has rec­om­mend­ed this pro­gramme to any­one who is busi­ness-ori­ent­ed.

David said, "It was fun but some­times it was hard and it took a lot of time and ef­fort to get the home­work done." But he said hard work pays off.

"D0n't give up, keep on work­ing un­til you achieve your goal."

He thanked his par­ents and sib­lings for "putting out the mon­ey for me to do the MBA course and for en­cour­ag­ing and the sup­port­ing me to stand strong and do what I had to do." He al­so thanked his Stan­dard Five teacher at Tacarigua Pres­by­ter­ian School, Ms Nali­ni Ka­mal.

David en­joys crick­et, foot­ball and track and field. His favourite dish is pump­kin and fresh­ly made roti, and his favourite dessert is ice cream.