Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Eleven un­sung he­roes, who for decades de­vot­ed their lives to as­sist­ing the poor, re­ceived hon­orary awards as the Ro­tary Club of Pointe-a-Pierre cel­e­brat­ed its 25th an­niver­sary.The event took place on Sat­ur­day night at the Petrotrin Staff Club in Pointe-a-Pierre.Among those ho­n­oured was own­er of Su­perb Cater­ers, Wayne Ali, whose iden­ti­ty as the Se­cret San­ta of Cen­tral was re­vealed last Christ­mas.

Ali, who has been dis­trib­ut­ing more than 1,500 toys an­nu­al­ly to five vil­lages in cen­tral Trinidad for the past 31 years, proud­ly re­ceived his award. Al­so re­ceiv­ing an award was Pas­tor Ack­bar Khan for pro­vid­ing shel­ter to or­phans and aban­doned chil­dren for the last 25 years. Khan, who has in­ten­tions of open­ing a shel­ter for chil­dren was al­so laud­ed for his con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of youth.

Cham­pa Baksh, the wife of for­mer works min­is­ter Sadiq Baksh al­so re­ceived an award for as­sist­ing with di­a­betes aware­ness for more than 20 years. Prin­ci­pal of Table­land High School David Sam­my was al­so ho­n­oured for his con­tri­bu­tion to the field of dra­ma, while 81-year-old Ir­ma Seep­er­sad was recog­nised for her role in com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment and up­lift­ment of women.

Siewlal Ramkissoon, who worked with al­co­holics; Ter­rence Boissiere of the Mara­bel­la Rape Cri­sis Cen­tre; Scout leader Lind­say Sa­hai; com­mu­ni­ty builders Judy Boodoo-Ramdeen and Wade Madray; as well as di­rec­tor of Gen­er­al Earth Movers Ran­dolph Thack­o­rie, al­so re­ceived awards.Di­rec­tor of Vo­ca­tion Ser­vices Selvon Teelucks­ingh told the au­di­ence the club start­ed in 1988 and has spon­sored needy chil­dren as well as fund­ed lit­er­a­cy projects.

Ro­tar­i­an Lutch­man Singh al­so said they or­gan­ise ca­reer guid­ance sem­i­nars and oth­er youth ori­ent­ed projects. He said the Pointe-a-Pierre Ro­tary Club was vot­ed Most Gen­er­ous Club by the T&T Guardian in 1996 and re­ceived an award for the high­est per capi­ta con­tri­bu­tion to the Ro­tary Foun­da­tion.

He called on all Ro­tar­i­ans to up­hold their du­ty to help hu­man­i­ty and to work to­geth­er to im­prove the lives of the less for­tu­nate.Al­so at­tend­ing the func­tion were Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan, Petrotrin chair­man Khalid Has­sanali and promi­nent Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies his­to­ry lec­tur­er Dr Jerome Teelucks­ingh.