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Monday, July 21, 2025

RC Arch­bish­op tells stu­dents at walk for peace:

Speak out against ills in society

by

20160219

As hun­dreds of sec­ondary school stu­dents from schools in Port-of-Spain walked through the city on Wednes­day to ex­press their dis­gust and con­cern over the ap­par­ent ris­ing crime, in­clud­ing that of vi­o­lence which seems to be per­vad­ing the coun­try, Ro­man Catholic Arch­bish­op Fr Joseph Har­ris urged them to be the change they want­ed, which was so bad­ly need­ed.

Dressed in their re­spec­tive school uni­forms some 14 schools, in­clud­ing Suc­cess Laven­tille, St Mary's Col­lege, St An­tho­ny's, Prov­i­dence Girls', St Charles, Holy Name Con­vent, Fa­ti­ma Col­lege, Ser­vol, St Joseph's Con­vent, Bel­mont Boys' and Cor­pus Christi silent­ly marched for peace which be­gan around 9 am at Lord Har­ris Square, Pem­broke Street.

They pro­ceed­ed down to Wood­ford Square, un­to Fred­er­ick, Prince and Hen­ry Streets be­fore stop­ping at Memo­r­i­al Park.

Har­ris, who briefly ad­dressed the gath­er­ing at Memo­r­i­al Park, hailed the youths for their ef­forts but urged them to speak out against the ills in so­ci­ety.

"Even though the march was a silent one the young peo­ple must have a voice and they must be the change they want­ed. "We can­not be a peace­ful na­tion un­less we are a just na­tion. These stu­dents must be the peace­mak­ers of the fu­ture," Har­ris said.

He al­so told the stu­dents that they must al­ways strive to cre­ate har­mo­ny in their schools, homes and wher­ev­er they went.

"The march is a won­der­ful idea and this is what the coun­try needs," Har­ris added.

Prin­ci­pal of Fa­ti­ma Col­lege, Fr Gre­go­ry Au­gus­tine, said the killings of two Suc­cess Laven­tille Sec­ondary School stu­dents were the im­pe­tus for ini­tia­tive.

"This is a walk for peace in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Suc­cess Laven­tille Gov­ern­ment. We felt that we had to say some­thing in terms of our sup­port, for their fam­i­lies and the school.

"I am al­so a col­league of that school's prin­ci­pal and we have suf­fered grave­ly over those two loss­es be­cause those boys were re­al­ly quite tal­ent­ed," Au­gus­tine said.

Smith, 17, of Mul­rain Trace, Pic­ton, and Richards, 15, of So­gren Trace were dragged from a taxi and shot dead while on their way home at Up­per Pic­ton Road on Jan­u­ary 21, this year.

Asked why there was no such event, giv­en pre­vi­ous mur­ders of school chil­dren, Au­gus­tine said: "I think it is the na­ture of what has hap­pened. Clear­ly there was no mo­tive.

"These were promis­ing young men and for their lives to be tak­en so trag­i­cal­ly we felt we had to say some­thing in terms of our sol­i­dar­i­ty," Au­gus­tine.

This year, ac­cord­ing to the Catholic cal­en­der, has been de­clared the year of mer­cy. Giv­en this, Au­gus­tine hoped Wednes­day's march would touch the na­tion and to "con­sci­en­tise" young peo­ple to en­gage in build­ing T&T.

Sis­ter Ren�e Hall, of the Do­mini­can Sis­ters of St Cather­ine and teacher at Holy Name Con­vent, urged young peo­ple to take a firm stand against vi­o­lence in all forms.

"We brought out Form Four stu­dents to be a part of this...to end the vi­o­lence and to stop the si­lence in this land over such grue­some acts of mur­der," Hall said, adding that the mur­ders of Smith and Richards had hit "the core."

On what could be achieved from the event Hall said: "It shows that we are will­ing to walk the walk...not just talk­ing. Our stu­dents are miss­ing school be­cause this is seen as a pri­or­i­ty."

Pres­i­dent of Ar­rive Alive, Sharon In­gle­field, who came out to sup­port the cause, al­so echoed the sen­ti­ments of Au­gus­tine and Hall, de­mand­ing that the killings and abuse end. Sis­ter Julie Marie Pe­ters said the si­lence over the killings and oth­er heinous crimes had been too deaf­en­ing and called for heal­ing.

"The stu­dents are walk­ing in si­lence to mim­ic the si­lence that is hap­pen­ing in the coun­try. We need to act now where crime is con­cerned. When crime has en­croached in the school this is re­al­ly mad­den­ing. It says that some­thing has hap­pened to the con­scious of Trinidad," Pe­ters added.

LET­TER TO CRIM­I­NALS

Form Three stu­dent of Prov­i­dence Girls' Mic­ah Cipri­ani, who in her let­ter ad­dressed to crim­i­nals said she, like the ma­jor­i­ty of so­ci­ety, was fed up hear­ing about lives be­ing dai­ly snuffed out.

"I am re­al­ly tired of hear­ing about a man, woman or child be­ing killed in our na­tion.

"If you choose to do wrong, one day you will suf­fer the con­se­quence. Please change your life and do the right thing...do not take any more lives," Cipri­ani told wrong­do­ers.

She said she too had en­dured pain af­ter, some­one she loved, was killed "over mon­ey."

The mur­der of Japan­ese pan play­er Asa­mi Na­gakiya, whose body was dis­cov­ered at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah on Ash Wednes­day was al­so brought to the fore, as stu­dents al­so lament­ed that tourists were be­ing killed.

There were al­so read­ings of sev­er­al oth­er let­ters in­clud­ing that of Ariya Men­don�a of Holy Name Con­vent and Kris­tiana Ma­habir of St Joseph's Con­vent, San Fer­nan­do, while prayers were of­fered for the souls of Smith and Richards.


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