Rhon­dor Dowlat

Host of the tele­vi­sion pro­gramme Point Blank, Mar­cia Henville, will be missed by the youths in some of the im­pov­er­ished and crime-rid­den ar­eas of T&T where she worked to re­store peace be­tween ri­val gangs and bring a voice to the voice­less.Speak­ing with the Sun­day Guardian yes­ter­day, com­mu­ni­ty leader in the Beetham area Ken­neth "Span­ish" Ro­driguez ex­pressed shock on hear­ing of Henville's trag­ic death.

Ro­driguez said he worked close­ly with Henville for years and de­scribed her as a hum­ble woman."Mar­cia was a very good soul. May the light shine up­on her now. Mar­cia would reach out to me and we would talk for hours about what was hap­pen­ing among the youths in this com­mu­ni­ty. She tried her best to reach out to them, to lis­ten to their cries, their con­cerns, their hurts, their anger, their every­thing."

Ro­driguez said Henville was well-known and well-re­spect­ed in the de­prived ar­eas "be­cause she stood up for the youths and she made it her busi­ness to lis­ten to them and help them out in any and every way that she could have done."Sea Lots res­i­dent Tony Isaac said Henville was one of the very few that stood up for peo­ple like him.

"I know Mar­cia for years, and she was a re­al woman. She took the time and would come in the area and would sit and talk to us. She un­der­stood what caused the wars among the com­mu­ni­ties, in­clud­ing here in Sea Lots, and high­light­ed the war, the guns, the drugs in pub­lic so that peo­ple would see the broad­er pic­ture in ex­pos­ing the truth and why peo­ple did what they did," Isaac said.

"Mar­cia will be sure­ly missed. I don't know if there is any­one out there who can fill her shoes. This is so sad," he added.An­oth­er res­i­dent who lived at Pic­ton Road, Laven­tille, but did not want his name pub­lished, said, "I re­al­ly can't be­lieve that the on­ly woman that stand up for us is now dead and gone. If she died out of the or­di­nary, trust me we will have to get jus­tice for her."

The res­i­dent said when all at­tempts were made to get a fair hear­ing from the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties, es­pe­cial­ly when one of their own was killed by the po­lice, Henville made it her busi­ness to come and get the sto­ry straight and ex­pose it on na­tion­al tele­vi­sion.

"She was that type of per­son. She was nev­er one to be afraid and would come and broad­cast the re­al­i­ty of things and truth be­hind the po­lice abuse to­wards us and why they want to kill us out and why oth­er peo­ple want to come in here in Laven­tille to kill us. Mar­cia was the on­ly one with a heart for us. May she rest in peace!"

Con­do­lences pour in

Matt calls for thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion

When con­tact­ed for a com­ment on the death of Mar­cia Henville, Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion (Matt) pres­i­dent Cur­tis Williams yes­ter­day ex­pressed shock. "We do not know ex­act­ly the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing her pass­ing, ex­cept we know that her charred re­mains were found. How­ev­er, one hopes that there will be a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to her death and the chips may fall where they may.

"In the cir­cum­stances, we can on­ly ex­press our sad­ness at her pass­ing and to mourn the loss of yet an­oth­er jour­nal­ist. We lost a few me­dia work­ers in the last year or so."Ms Henville's pass­ing, with­out be­ing too cliched, is re­al­ly un­time­ly."Williams ex­pressed deep­est and sin­cer­est con­do­lences to Henville's fam­i­ly and friends.

PM: The na­tion has lost atal­ent­ed, ded­i­cat­ed jour­nal­ist

The na­tion has lost a tal­ent­ed and ded­i­cat­ed jour­nal­ist.That's how Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed Mar­cia Henville, who died yes­ter­day in an ear­ly morn­ing fire at her St Au­gus­tine home.In a re­lease from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was "shocked and sad­dened to learn of the death of Ms Henville in such trag­ic cir­cum­stances."

Of­fer­ing con­do­lences to Henville's fam­i­ly, friends and col­leagues, the PM said, "Mar­cia was known for her fear­less pur­suit of the truth, and the na­tion has lost a tal­ent­ed and ded­i­cat­ed jour­nal­ist."Per­sad-Bisses­sar stat­ed that Henville was not­ed for two things–her valu­able con­tri­bu­tion to the field of jour­nal­ism and her strong fo­cus on high­light­ing so­cial is­sues in the coun­try.

"My thoughts and prayers are with her loved ones. May her soul rest in peace," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

COP sad over trag­ic news

Con­gress of the Peo­ple Leader, Prakash Ra­mad­har, yes­ter­day is­sued a short me­dia re­lease ex­press­ing his con­do­lences on Henville's death."It is with great sad­ness that we learn of the pass­ing of jour­nal­ist Mar­cia Henville un­der un­time­ly and most un­for­tu­nate cir­cum­stances. The Con­gress of the Peo­ple stands in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the en­tire me­dia fra­ter­ni­ty and all of Trinidad & To­ba­go over this most trag­ic news," the re­lease said.

Ad­vo­cate of the down­trod­den,op­pressed–ILP

The In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP) yes­ter­day joined with the rest of the coun­try in ex­tend­ing con­do­lences on Mar­cia Henville's trag­ic death.

ILP leader Jack Warn­er, in a press re­lease yes­ter­day, said he was "sad­dened to learn this morn­ing of the sud­den pass­ing of Ms Mar­cia Henville, jour­nal­ist and so­cial and po­lit­i­cal ac­tivist. Her pass­ing will leave an im­mense void in all the ar­eas of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment and ad­vo­ca­cy, and her voice will be missed from the air­waves. To her fam­i­ly, friends and me­dia col­leagues, we ex­tend deep­est con­do­lences."

Warn­er said Henville was a true and ded­i­cat­ed ad­vo­cate of the peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly the down­trod­den and the op­pressed.