Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

For stu­dents study­ing abroad, home­sick­ness is a re­al is­sue, but Dalise Lock­hart will tell you it’s not the on­ly is­sue. They face many chal­lenges in a new city and en­vi­ron­ment.

Af­ter dis­cov­er­ing how se­vere those strug­gles can be, Lock­hart found­ed the Texas Caribbean Stu­dents Or­gan­i­sa­tion in 2018 aim­ing to pro­vide a broad­er plat­form that con­nects Caribbean stu­dents glob­al­ly and of­fers valu­able re­sources to sup­port their aca­d­e­m­ic and per­son­al growth.

Lock­hart was born in T&T but moved to Brook­lyn, New York, at the age of three but her heart still beats Tri­ni. She was the Miss Uni­verse T&T sec­ond run­ner up in 2023 as Miss San­gre Grande.

Her work is deep-root­ed in help­ing Caribbean na­tion­als. From con­nect­ing stu­dents in the Unit­ed States and glob­al­ly to now as­sist­ing Caribbean artistes try­ing to find their way in the mu­sic in­dus­try.

“I still em­brace my Tri­ni roots, es­pe­cial­ly grow­ing up in a Caribbean house­hold,” Lock­hart said.

Those Tri­ni roots run deep. Her grand­fa­ther is ca­lyp­son­ian Pos­er (Sylvester Lock­hart).

In 2023, her grand­fa­ther was ho­n­oured with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cul­tur­al Achieve­ment Award in New York while the Con­sulate Gen­er­al in New York fur­ther recog­nised Pos­er’s con­tri­bu­tions, un­der­lin­ing the im­por­tant role the na­tion’s cul­tur­al am­bas­sadors play on the glob­al stage.

In keep­ing with her roots, Lock­hart grew up play­ing the steel­pan in New York and she con­tin­ues to fly the T&T flag even if she has spent most of her life in the Unit­ed States.

It was while study­ing at Sam Hous­ton State Uni­ver­si­ty in Texas that Lock­hart found there was a need to help Caribbean stu­dents who were strug­gling to set­tle in­to the new en­vi­ron­ment.

“The pur­pose of me found­ing Texas Caribbean Stu­dents Or­gan­i­sa­tion (ex­tend­ing to Glob­al Caribbean Stu­dents Con­nect) was to cre­ate a safe space for Caribbean stu­dents to feel rep­re­sent­ed, em­pow­ered and con­nect­ed as a whole,” she ex­plained.

“While I was a stu­dent, I no­ticed there was a dis­con­nect with us hav­ing our iden­ti­ty as first-gen­er­a­tion Caribbean Amer­i­cans.

“Many of the chal­lenges our stu­dents face, es­pe­cial­ly in­ter­na­tion­al stu­dents, is there is a sep­a­ra­tion among the two cul­tures. Be­cause of this, they strug­gle to nav­i­gate through­out the cam­pus­es and fi­nan­cial­ly they al­so do not have the same op­por­tu­ni­ties be­cause they are on a stu­dent visa and that pre­vents them from ob­tain­ing a sus­tain­able job. They don’t have the same op­por­tu­ni­ties as a stu­dent who re­sides in the Unit­ed States.”

The idea was to cre­ate a com­mu­ni­ty which would pro­vide re­sources, men­tor­ship, and a strong cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ty.

“My pas­sion re­al­ly was be­cause of my ex­pe­ri­ence with the lack of rep­re­sen­ta­tion we had while at­tend­ing a pre­dom­i­nant­ly white in­sti­tute,” she said.

Since its in­cep­tion, the Texas Caribbean Stu­dents Or­ga­ni­za­tion has as­sist­ed more than 300 stu­dents with men­tor­ship, net­work­ing and cul­tur­al con­nec­tions.

The ini­tia­tive be­came such a suc­cess that Lock­hart re­ceived a recog­ni­tion award - the 30 Un­der 30 Change­mak­er Award - in Ju­ly 2023 in Wash­ing­ton DC.

She said the feed­back from Caribbean stu­dents who have been helped by her or­gan­i­sa­tion has been tremen­dous.

The work Lock­hart’s or­gan­i­sa­tion does has be­come even more im­por­tant with the chal­leng­ing mi­gra­tion poli­cies be­ing en­act­ed in the US since the change of ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“I just hope to con­tin­ue bridg­ing the gap be­tween Caribbean Amer­i­cans and West In­di­ans,” she said.

Lock­hart’s life re­cent­ly took a dif­fer­ent turn when she be­came a flight at­ten­dant, but she re­mains com­mit­ted to the peo­ple of this re­gion.

She ex­plained: “I see my new ca­reer as a step­ping­stone be­cause I do be­lieve once I have a set sched­ule, I will be able to be of more as­sis­tance with my or­gan­i­sa­tion and all of the ven­tures that I have.”

One such ven­ture is help­ing Caribbean artistes who are seek­ing to make a break­through in the in­ter­na­tion­al mu­sic scene. She is the CEO of the New Gen­er­a­tion of Caribbean Mu­sic (Nuu Gen) En­ter­tain­ment which serves to con­nect cul­tures through mu­sic and events.

“For young, up­com­ing artistes, I think a plat­form is nec­es­sary where we can as­sist Caribbean artistes that don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly re­ceive that as­sis­tance that they re­quire,” she said.

She cur­rent­ly has two artistes signed to her group: DJ Cheem from Bar­ba­dos and Taller Dan from T&T. She is hop­ing to have more Caribbean artistes come on board to help pro­pel their ca­reer.

Al­though her life is head­ed in dif­fer­ent di­rec­tions, Lock­hart re­mains com­mit­ted to serv­ing the peo­ple of the Caribbean. She vis­its T&T reg­u­lar­ly - a place where she was born and left at a very ear­ly age, but where a piece of her heart still re­sides.