Michelle Loubon

Against the back­drop of ver­dant green­ery, Laven­tille res­i­dents Cuth­bert George and his daugh­ter Jonelle cut the rib­bon to their new home at 27 Cu­napo Road, Coalmine, San­gre Grande, yes­ter­day. It cost about $140,000 and was built by vol­un­teers-main­ly Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus stu­dents. Apart from a new home, his dis­abled wife Joanne was pre­sent­ed with a wheel­chair cour­tesy the Ro­tary Club of Fe­lic­i­ty/Char­lieville. Among those shar­ing in George's hap­pi­ness were tri­par­tite stake­hold­ers-UWI, Habi­tat For Hu­man­i­ty for T&T (HFHTT) and First Cit­i­zens Bank. Gush­ing over his new home, George said: "I wish to thank UWI and all the beau­ti­ful peo­ple who came to do this. They took time off from their com­put­ers and air con­di­tion­ing and were dig­ging the dirt and paint­ing. On be­half of my fam­i­ly I want to thank you all very much."

Joanne added: "Great. I'm so hap­py. I'm not go­ing home tonight." Their daugh­ter Jonelle added: "I am ex­cit­ed and hap­py." Among those shar­ing in the George fam­i­ly hap­pi­ness and laud­ing the youth for their dis­play of vol­un­teerism, team­work and ser­vice to com­mu­ni­ty and hu­man­i­ty was Chanka Seeter­ram, chair­man HFHTT. Seeter­ram said: "Four months ago, we stood here full of hope and ex­cite­ment as we turned the sod to mark the start of the project. To­day, we stand here with great pride to be part of dreams com­ing through and wit­ness­ing the George fam­i­ly re­al­is­ing their im­pos­si­ble dream of ever own­ing their home."

Com­pli­ment­ing fu­ture lead­ers, Seeter­ram added: "We had 42 stu­dents con­tribut­ing over 166 hours on this project. The Cam­pus Chap­ter con­cept is built on the be­lief young peo­ple can make a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence in so­ci­ety." Shar­ing in the George's mile­stone were Ken­ny At­tai, di­rec­tor HFHTT Chris­tine Sa­hadeo Ad­vi­sor, UWI Cam­pus Chap­ter and Lar­ry Howai Group CEO, First Cit­i­zens. They were joined by Vice Chan­cel­lor UWI Prof Nigel E Har­ris, St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus prin­ci­pal Prof Clement Sankat and El­ton Wick­ham Di­rec­tor of Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions at the Min­istry of Hous­ing and En­vi­ron­ment.