Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va 

Four res­i­dents of San Fer­nan­do West were cel­e­brat­ed on Sat­ur­day evening as Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Michael Dowlath host­ed one of the con­stituen­cy’s first ma­jor Christ­mas events for the sea­son.

The cer­e­mo­ny, held in­doors due to weath­er con­cerns, al­so marked the launch of the MP’s an­nu­al toy dri­ve and com­mu­ni­ty as­sis­tance ini­tia­tive.

Among those ho­n­oured were women ac­tivists Dr Cather­ine Ali and Sab­ri­na Mowlah-Baksh, ed­u­ca­tor Dr Jamwant Ma­haraj, who re­ceived an Hon­orary Doc­tor of Sci­ence from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) this year, and Cha­co­nia Sil­ver awardee and video­jour­nal­ist Ivan Toolsie.

De­liv­er­ing greet­ings at the launch, Dr Dowlath re­flect­ed on last year’s Christ­mas ac­tiv­i­ties, say­ing the toy dri­ve and neigh­bour­hood out­reach had be­come im­por­tant tra­di­tions in bring­ing joy to fam­i­lies.

“As we re­flect on the past year in San Fer­nan­do, there are some spe­cial per­sons who were award­ed na­tion­al­ly,” he told the au­di­ence. “They have worked over the years, and it is time that we too cel­e­brate our own.”

The evening recog­nised four San Fer­nan­do West res­i­dents whose con­tri­bu­tions at the na­tion­al lev­el earned them pres­ti­gious ho­n­ours in 2025.

Mowlah-Baksh re­ceived spe­cial recog­ni­tion af­ter re­ceiv­ing the Medal for the De­vel­op­ment of Women (Sil­ver) at the 2025 Na­tion­al Awards.

A for­mer deputy may­or and coun­cil­lor, Dowlath said Mowlah-Baksh has built an ex­ten­sive re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al port­fo­lio ad­vo­cat­ing for gen­der jus­tice, peace­build­ing, and women's lead­er­ship. Her work spans UN Women Caribbean, the EU–UN Spot­light Ini­tia­tive, and glob­al net­works such as Women Me­di­a­tors Across the Com­mon­wealth.

She cur­rent­ly serves as Chair of Women for Peace and Jus­tice and Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of the Coali­tion Against Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence.

Dr Ali was ho­n­oured for pi­o­neer­ing gen­der jus­tice, in­clud­ing decades of work in gen­der me­di­a­tion, restora­tive jus­tice, and women's de­vel­op­ment, along with long­stand­ing in­volve­ment in na­tion­al pol­i­tics where she served un­der UNC founder Bas­deo Pan­day and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Toolsie was recog­nised for his four decades of work in jour­nal­ism high­light­ing so­cial is­sues, while Dr Ma­haraj was ac­knowl­edged for ex­cel­lence in ed­u­ca­tion and cul­tur­al lead­er­ship. He has au­thored sev­er­al chem­istry text­books and nov­els and plays a lead­ing role in cul­tur­al preser­va­tion through the Nock Street and En­vi­ron­ment Sports and Cul­tur­al As­so­ci­a­tion.

Dr Dowlath con­grat­u­lat­ed the ho­n­ourees, say­ing their achieve­ments brought pride and recog­ni­tion not on­ly to San Fer­nan­do West but to the na­tion. At­ten­dees lat­er joined street-side fes­tiv­i­ties and culi­nary cel­e­bra­tions out­side the venue as the con­stituen­cy wel­comed the Christ­mas sea­son.