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Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Vil­lage no longer rur­al and re­mote

From agriculture to academia

...Debe poised for ma­jor trans­for­ma­tion

by

20110424
Peter and Murium Greene

Peter and Murium Greene

Debe is well known as an agri­cul­tur­al vil­lage and home of the best tast­ing East In­di­an del­i­ca­cies in the coun­try.This rur­al im­age, how­ev­er, will soon un­der­go mas­sive over­haul as the gov­ern­ment moves to trans­form the dis­trict in­to the epi­cen­tre of south­ern acad­e­mia.The vi­brant South­ern com­mu­ni­ty, which has ex­pe­ri­enced a com­mer­cial boom in re­cent years with an in­crease in small busi­ness­es, is now on the fast track to growth and de­vel­op­ment with the planned con­struc­tion of the South cam­pus of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI)."Now Debe will be plen­ty more than dou­bles," de­clared 67-year-old res­i­dent, Bharath Ra­goo, who is proud that his home­town will be­come south Trinidad's cen­tre of high­er learn­ing.Last March, Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, UWI Chan­cel­lor Sir George Al­leyne and prin­ci­pal of the St Au­gus­tine cam­pus Pro­fes­sor Clement Sankat were on hand for the un­veil­ing of a plaque rep­re­sent­ing the hand­ing over of lands for the cam­pus.

Min­is­ter of Sci­ence Tech­nol­o­gy and Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion Fazal Karim said 100 acres of Ca­roni (1975) Ltd land had been ap­proved for the cam­pus, which would be lo­cat­ed north of the Debe Sec­ondary School.Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the area, Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, told the T&T Guardian that Debe was se­lect­ed be­cause of the pas­sion res­i­dents had shown over the years to lead the na­tion in all as­pects of de­vel­op­ment.Con­struc­tion of the UWI South cam­pus, he said, was a sig­nif­i­cant step in the growth of the dis­trict.

"It is a com­plete in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment of Debe and it is part of our thrust to up­grade, not on­ly part of our ed­u­ca­tion and skills set in the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, but al­so to en­sure that we di­ver­si­fy in the di­rec­tion of ed­u­ca­tion and ed­u­ca­tion in­fra­struc­ture," Mooni­lal said.He be­lieves the cam­pus, which is in the de­sign stage, will be a source of pride for all cit­i­zens of South Trinidad."I think there is a lot of col­lab­o­ra­tion go­ing on with the uni­ver­si­ty com­mu­ni­ty and among Cab­i­net mem­bers to en­sure we have a world-class fa­cil­i­ty at Debe," he said."This, we be­lieve, will lead to an ex­pan­sion of Debe and Pe­nal as a growth pole in Trinidad and To­ba­go."His­tor­i­cal­ly, Mooni­lal said, Debe/Pe­nal's im­age had been of "cui­sine...of dou­bles and al­loo pie.

"But as I have said be­fore, we have to move to an­oth­er fron­tier of ed­u­ca­tion, of tech­nol­o­gy and of sports," he said.While Debe has ex­pe­ri­enced com­mer­cial growth, with an in­crease in shop­ping malls and busi­ness­es, the com­mu­ni­ty has not com­plete­ly shed its rus­tic roots.Agri­cul­ture pro­duc­tion is not on the same scale as it was in the 1980s, but fresh pro­duce re­mains an in­te­gral part of com­mu­ni­ty life.Debe is still an area where vil­lagers trav­el by bi­cy­cle to the whole­sale mar­ket and ven­dors cut up and pre­pare green man­goes for sale at the road­side.

Res­i­dents wel­come plans for the cam­pus which they see as rep­re­sent­ing fur­ther op­por­tu­ni­ties for growth in the once rur­al com­mu­ni­ty.Rose­mary Has­sanali, own­er and man­ag­er of the pop­u­lar Has­sanali's Dou­bles, said: "Debe has grown and has changed a lot, in a bet­ter way...It is more mod­ernised."We feel very good about the UWI cam­pus com­ing here and it will be very good for busi­ness as well," she added.Veg­etable ven­dor Gopaul Bas­deo, 42, be­lieves con­struc­tion of the in­sti­tu­tion will shat­ter his­tor­i­cal stereo­types as­so­ci­at­ed with the vil­lage.

a"This will def­i­nite­ly break the stig­ma that Debe is a rur­al com­mu­ni­ty...Now peo­ple will be look­ing up to it," he said."Debe, as a com­mu­ni­ty has grown a lot from the past and with the cam­pus com­ing, it will be de­vel­op­ing more and more so that will be good."It will help the com­mu­ni­ty and South, in gen­er­al, be­cause we have been ne­glect­ed for so many years."Bas­deo, who has been sell­ing pro­duce at Debe Junc­tion for the past 26 years, said he had seen his com­mu­ni­ty grow in­to a com­mer­cial hub and now the cam­pus "will en­hance the Debe com­mu­ni­ty."Ac­cord­ing to lo­cal his­to­ri­an Louis B Homer, Debe was "the food bas­ket of South Trinidad."

The vil­lage was named af­ter an es­tate in the area, he said, and in the ear­ly days, the mode of trans­port was by train. There were quite a few train stops along the way, which fa­cil­i­tat­ed vend­ing on both sides of the road."In the old days peo­ple would be sell­ing veg­eta­bles straight up to Pe­nal...When peo­ple stopped to buy veg­eta­bles, they would look for some­thing to nib­ble and that brought about the de­vel­op­ment of dou­bles and so on in the area," Homer said.

Debe's de­vel­op­ment con­tin­ued and in 2001, the com­mu­ni­ty be­came the home to two sec­ondary schools, Par­vati Girls' and Debe Sec­ondary School, for­mer­ly Debe High.Par­vati Girls' prin­ci­pal Ann Marie Tewari said that apart from the eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits, the cam­pus would give many of her stu­dents an op­por­tu­ni­ty to pur­sue their dreams."My girls are from se­mi-rur­al ar­eas...We en­cour­age them to dream and en­cour­age them to plan their fu­ture," she said.

"With their fam­i­ly sit­u­a­tion, some of them would have nev­er been al­lowed to go to uni­ver­si­ty if they had to go to Port-of-Spain or St Au­gus­tine or even abroad, so that prox­im­i­ty will help my young ladies in terms of let­ting their dreams be­come more of a re­al­i­ty."The school, which is cel­e­brat­ing its tenth an­niver­sary this year, has al­ready start­ed aca­d­e­m­ic prepa­ra­tions for the South cam­pus by of­fer­ing A-Lev­el cours­es.Debe Sec­ondary School prin­ci­pal Romeo Gun­ness said the South cam­pus had a two-fold ad­van­tage for the com­mu­ni­ty.

"You as­so­ciate a cer­tain type of per­son­al­i­ty when you come from Debe, but it (the South cam­pus) has now rev­o­lu­tionised that," he said."Now when you come from Debe, you are on par with rest of the coun­try."As a com­mu­ni­ty, I see Debe mov­ing for­ward with a lot of growth in terms of in­vest­ment and in terms of peo­ple's own per­cep­tion of them­selves as a com­mu­ni­ty. "You are no longer rur­al and re­mote, you are ac­ces­si­ble and you can ac­cess every­thing else."The ad­van­tage for Debe Sec­ondary stu­dents, he said, was lim­it­less as the south cam­pus would be lo­cat­ed next to the school.

At the school, Gun­ness said, they had a say­ing:

"When you en­ter the front gate at Debe Sec­ondary, you leave with a cer­tifi­cate and when you leave through the back gate, you leave with a de­gree be­cause it (the cam­pus) is lit­er­al­ly at the back gate."


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