Sto­ries by Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Schools op­er­at­ed by the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) are will­ing to take in mi­grant chil­dren come Sep­tem­ber.

The con­fir­ma­tion came from SDMS ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber and Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly dur­ing In­di­an Ar­rival Day cel­e­bra­tions host­ed by his or­gan­i­sa­tion at the NCIC Na­gar in Ch­agua­nas on Thurs­day.

Ram­bal­ly said, “The board of ed­u­ca­tion and the ex­ec­u­tive of the SDMS al­ways had un­der con­sid­er­a­tion whether or not they could ac­cept mi­grant chil­dren in their schools. What has hap­pened is that we are al­ways un­der de­mand. There is a huge de­mand for chil­dren to get in­to spaces which we do not have, that con­tin­ues to be a prob­lem. That is why we fight, clam­our and strug­gle to get our schools up­grad­ed and our in­com­plete schools com­plet­ed so we can have space.”

He said once the space be­comes avail­able, the SDMS will con­sid­er al­low­ing mi­grant chil­dren in­to their sys­tem. Mean­while, speak­ing about the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ in­ter­nal elec­tion, he said the Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots team is re­ceiv­ing a lot of sup­port. He said the call for in­ter­nal elec­tions was a call made by mem­bers of the pub­lic who want­ed to ex­er­cise their rights to en­sure that a strong UNC would go for­ward to face the polls.

When asked about the lack of sup­port for the Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots slate by UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, he said, “I per­son­al­ly don’t want to com­ment too much on the ac­tions of the po­lit­i­cal leader, Mrs Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar, on an ac­count of to­day be­ing In­di­an Ar­rival Day. What I would want to say, how­ev­er, Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar is dis­play­ing con­duct, her ac­tions is speak­ing to­wards what is un­be­com­ing of a leader. More and more I am con­vinced in my mind, and I think the pop­u­la­tion is a dis­cern­ing pop­u­la­tion and they are see­ing why it is that Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar is the great­est as­set for the PNM right now. Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar is turn­ing out to be Dr Kei­th Christo­pher Row­ley and his Cab­i­net and the PNM’s great­est as­set mov­ing in­to the next gen­er­al elec­tion on ac­count of her ac­tion.

Speak­ing ear­li­er dur­ing the func­tion, Ram­bal­ly said the East In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty is the prod­uct of un­sung vi­sion­ar­ies.

He said, “It is not hard to un­der­stand the sac­ri­fices they made. What is hard to un­der­stand is how eas­i­ly they em­braced it. To­day, we must ask our­selves why.

“What was that fire burn­ing in their hearts that kept their as­pi­ra­tions alive de­spite be­ing up­root­ed from all that home and coun­try, and through­out the dark­est mo­ments of their lives? What was it that kept them go­ing and what did they hope for? For sure, they hoped that we, their chil­dren, will have a life that was far dif­fer­ent from theirs, a life far re­moved from il­lit­er­a­cy, pover­ty, hunger and anonymi­ty. Above all, they want­ed to give us an in­sur­ance against pow­er­less­ness be­cause it was pre­cise­ly this wind of pow­er­less­ness that blew our fore­fa­thers from In­dia to here.”

Ram­bal­ly said cus­toms are not mere relics of the past but are the liv­ing, breath­ing essence of the iden­ti­ty and a tes­ta­ment to the en­durance of lo­cal East In­di­an cul­ture. “Preser­va­tion of these sa­cred and beau­ti­ful tra­di­tions is not au­to­mat­ic. It re­quires con­scious ef­fort and com­mit­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly from us all, as par­ents and el­ders. We have a sa­cred du­ty to ed­u­cate our chil­dren about their an­ces­tral tra­di­tions and cul­tur­al her­itage, and to in­stil in them a sense of pride and un­der­stand­ing of their roots. Above all, we must tell them that they too are cus­to­di­ans of a tra­di­tion that is not on­ly beau­ti­ful and aus­pi­cious, but al­so one that sus­tains our very lives in ways that we can­not al­ways ful­ly un­der­stand.”

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly re­ferred the T&T Guardian to her pre­vi­ous com­ments about the plan.

Last month, the min­is­ter said from Sep­tem­ber, 200 Venezue­lan mi­grant chil­dren whose par­ents are legal­ly reg­is­tered in this coun­try in 2019 will fi­nal­ly get a chance to en­rol in pri­ma­ry school. She con­firmed that 19 Ro­man Catholic schools had been ear­marked for mi­grant en­rol­ment.

“We have iden­ti­fied a group of stu­dents who are ready to tran­si­tion and so we are work­ing to get them in­to some schools un­der the Catholic Ed­u­ca­tion Board,” Gads­by-Dol­ly said then.