Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

As T&T's Ju­bilee In­de­pen­dence Day draws near­er, vice-pres­i­dent of the Na­pari­ma Scout Coun­cil Justin Paul has lament­ed that too many cit­i­zens are still un­aware of the sig­nif­i­cance of T&T's na­tion­al flag. His com­ments came as the scouts launched an ini­tia­tive to place a na­tion­al flag in every home. The event took place at the scouts' head­quar­ters at Em­ba­cadere, San Fer­nan­do. Say­ing many cit­i­zens could not draw the na­tion­al flag, Paul said lit­er­a­ture on prop­er flag eti­quette will al­so be dis­sem­i­nat­ed to the pop­u­la­tion.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Di­ver­si­ty and So­cial In­te­gra­tion Clifton De­Coteau, who de­liv­ered the fea­ture ad­dress, said a pa­tri­o­tism cam­paign will be launched in time for the Ju­bilee fes­tiv­i­ties. "When we car­ry this flag, we must re­mem­ber that it is the di­ver­si­ty of our peo­ple that helps to shape the unique char­ac­ter­is­tics of this na­tion," De­Coteau said.

He said that the pa­tri­o­tism cam­paign will fos­ter a sense of good­will, na­tion­al pride and uni­ty among cit­i­zens. "We plan to host a se­ries of ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing a Why I Love My Coun­try ra­dio pro­mo­tion, a com­mu­ni­ty clean-up cam­paign, a new na­tion­al jin­gle, a pub­lic-speak­ing com­pe­ti­tion for stu­dents, es­tab­lish­ment of a pa­tri­ot­ic vil­lage and a na­tion­al pa­tri­o­tism col­lege quiz," De Coteau said.

He not­ed that the scouts' flag dri­ve will raise pub­lic con­scious­ness about the im­por­tance of pa­tri­o­tism in T&T. As part of the Ju­bilee cel­e­bra­tions, De­Coteau said the Gov­ern­ment will en­gage civ­il-so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions in its di­ver­si­ty and so­cial-in­te­gra­tion pro­grammes.

Mean­while, pres­i­dent of the Rapid Fire Kids Foun­da­tion Kevin Rati­ram al­so com­mend­ed the scouts for the ini­tia­tive. He said the scout­ing move­ment was a vi­able al­ter­na­tive to de­viant be­hav­iour and ju­ve­nile crime. Rati­ram said that many of the skills and val­ues im­part­ed by the scouts were ab­sent in T&T's tech­no­log­i­cal age.

He said T&T's cit­i­zens must em­brace the val­ues of the scout­ing move­ment and de­vel­op re­spect, pa­tri­o­tism and pride in one's coun­try. Al­so at­tend­ing the func­tion were for­mer judge Shaffie Shah, as­sis­tant com­mis­sion­er of San Fer­nan­do Ken­ny Ar­joon and se­nior scout leader Den­nis Su­per­sad.