Dix­ie-Ann Dick­son

Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­is­ter Win­ston Pe­ters is telling the lo­cal Carib com­mu­ni­ty that their queen Valenti­na Ass­ing Med­i­na's fight to ac­quire more land and re­spect for the com­mu­ni­ty will not die with her pass­ing.Speak­ing at Med­i­na's fu­ner­al yes­ter­day at the San­ta Rosa Catholic Church, Ari­ma, Pe­ters said his Gov­ern­ment was will­ing to "cham­pi­on the cause" of the Carib peo­ple in their plight for more land and for the preser­va­tion of their cul­ture, but they must come to­geth­er.Med­i­na, 78, who died a week ago af­ter bat­tling with can­cer, had been lob­by­ing for these is­sues to be ad­dressed.The Carib com­mu­ni­ty was giv­en five acres of land by the Patrick Man­ning Ad­min­is­tra­tion.But Pe­ters said de­spite this ac­qui­si­tion, the com­mu­ni­ty de­served much more than that.

"The coun­try be­longs to you...so I am will­ing to as­sist you in what­ev­er way we can...I am will­ing to cham­pi­on your cause," Pe­ters said.How­ev­er, he ad­mon­ished them to come to­geth­er as a uni­fied body in or­der to achieve their goals."You are your worst en­e­my, you must come to­geth­er as one to achieve your goals...I ad­mon­ish you to get your­self to­geth­er," Pe­ter added.Un­der­scor­ing this view was act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an who stat­ed that Med­i­na's in­spi­ra­tion was an en­cour­age­ment to con­tin­ue to fos­ter greater uni­ty, not on­ly among her peo­ple, but through­out T&T.

De­scrib­ing Med­i­na as a pow­er­ful and coura­geous woman, Dook­er­an said even in her dy­ing days she was think­ing of the fu­ture of the com­mu­ni­ty and the coun­try.He said he hoped that her lega­cy of hu­mil­i­ty and courage con­tin­ue to shine through the com­mu­ni­ty.How­ev­er, Ro­man Catholic priest Chris­t­ian Pereira who of­fi­ci­at­ed the fu­ner­al called on the youth of the Carib com­mu­ni­ty to get in­volve and car­ry on her lega­cy.He said if the com­mu­ni­ty want­ed to pre­serve their iden­ti­ty, the youth must get in­volved. But the lega­cy must be trans­lat­ed for the younger gen­er­a­tion to un­der­stand and ap­pre­ci­ate it.Pereira said if that was not done, then all ef­forts will die with Med­i­na.Med­i­na's daugh­ter, Loret­ta Med­i­na-Grant, spoke high­ly of her moth­er, de­scrib­ing her as a woman of great faith and be­ing a peace­mak­er.

She said her moth­er died peace­ful­ly with her fam­i­ly at her side.Many peo­ple came out to pay trib­ute to Med­i­na, whom they de­scribed as em­body­ing the true spir­it of the first peo­ples and one who was full of knowl­edge.The mood at the fu­ner­al was very cel­e­bra­to­ry as many be­lieved she lived a rich and mean­ing­ful life.Among them were PNM sen­a­tor Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, May­or of Ari­ma Ghas­san Youseph, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment Lin­coln Dou­glas and MP for the area Roger Samuel.Med­i­na was the first Carib queen to have her body lay in State at City Hall. A street pro­ces­sion fol­lowed her fu­ner­al and end­ed with a smoke cer­e­mo­ny.