At 89-years-old, Ram­das Sook­lal is back in the class­room. Yes­ter­day, in front of the scores of peo­ple who at­tend­ed the Bo­cas Lit Fest at the Na­tion­al Li­brary and In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem Au­thor­i­ty, in Port-of-Spain, Sook­lal read his first speech with pride, in the pres­ence of a smil­ing Paula Lu­cie-Smith, CEO and founder of AL­TA.

AL­TA has been re­spon­si­ble for chang­ing Sook­lal's life, of­fer­ing lit­er­a­cy tu­tor­ing to him in his twi­light years. The oc­ca­sion was heart-warm­ing, as Sook­lal, who nev­er got an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ed­u­cate him­self as a child, be­cause of var­i­ous hard­ships in his life, could now read and write. In the pres­ence of his fam­i­ly, Sook­lal, a fa­ther of eight, who was al­most moved to tears, said he was in­spired by Ki­mani Maruge who act­ed in the movie, The First Grad­er.

Sook­lal de­scribed Maruge as a man of courage and de­ter­mi­na­tion, who we should fol­low. "Noth­ing stopped this great man from achiev­ing his pur­pose. He nev­er gave up or took things for grant­ed." Sook­lal, AL­TA's old­est stu­dent, said he was en­cour­aged by one of his daugh­ters to go back to school. "I al­ways want­ed to read and write bet­ter." Sook­lal said he could now read the Holy Bible.