A school­teacher and a sec­ondary stu­dent were cel­e­brat­ed by CIBC Caribbean for their care, kind­ness, and com­mu­ni­ty spir­it as the first and sec­ond-place win­ners of the T&T leg of the Un­sung He­roes pro­gramme.

At 80, Mar­lene Gilbert—af­fec­tion­ate­ly known as Aun­ty Mar­lene—re­mains pas­sion­ate­ly com­mit­ted to her life­long vo­ca­tion of nur­tur­ing young minds. Her last teach­ing post was at Mu­cu­rapo Se­nior Com­pre­hen­sive un­til her re­tire­ment in 2000. Yet, every Sun­day, her Bel­mont home trans­forms in­to a learn­ing space for school-age chil­dren, some as young as 11 and trav­el­ing from as far as Ari­ma, to par­tic­i­pate in ex­tra-cur­ric­u­lar lessons. Through her ded­i­ca­tion and un­der­stand­ing of in­di­vid­ual learn­ing styles, she helps stu­dents dis­cov­er po­ten­tial they may not yet recog­nise in them­selves.

A mem­ber of St Crispin’s An­gli­can Church in Wood­brook, Aun­ty Mar­lene al­so con­tributes to the wider com­mu­ni­ty as an ac­tive mem­ber of the Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go. She de­votes her time to cre­at­ing sup­port­ive en­vi­ron­ments where young peo­ple can show­case their sport­ing tal­ents.

At just 16, Re­nalon Vil­lafana demon­strat­ed re­mark­able ini­tia­tive and lead­er­ship. He or­gan­ised a stu­dent-led out­reach to the Ezekiel Home for Aban­doned Chil­dren, rais­ing funds at his school rather than wait­ing for busi­ness donors, and mo­ti­vat­ed class­mates to join in. To­geth­er, they de­liv­ered gifts, snack ham­pers, and games to the chil­dren.

As Stu­dent Coun­cil Pres­i­dent at Tabaquite Sec­ondary, Re­nalon host­ed his first beach clean-up at Ma­yaro Beach, per­son­al­ly reach­ing out to com­pa­nies to se­cure spon­sor­ship. His per­sis­tence and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al skills en­sured the event’s suc­cess, which was lat­er cel­e­brat­ed on his school’s of­fi­cial Face­book page. He went on to lead a sec­ond clean-up, mo­bil­is­ing even more vol­un­teers. Through these ef­forts, he demon­strat­ed that car­ing for the en­vi­ron­ment is an in­te­gral part of car­ing for the com­mu­ni­ty. Re­cent­ly, he al­so won his cat­e­go­ry in the Queen’s Com­mon­wealth Es­say Com­pe­ti­tion.

The Un­sung He­roes pro­gramme, orig­i­nal­ly run­ning from 2003 to 2013, high­light­ed and re­ward­ed Caribbean men and women qui­et­ly mak­ing a dif­fer­ence in their com­mu­ni­ties. This year, CIBC Caribbean re­vived the ini­tia­tive across its 10-mem­ber re­gion­al foot­print, re­sult­ing in 39 nom­i­nees and reaf­firm­ing the strong cul­ture of care and kind­ness that ex­ists through­out the Caribbean.

At the Trinidad awards cer­e­mo­ny on De­cem­ber 3, Ma­hadeo Se­barath, Coun­try Head for CIBC Caribbean in Trinidad and To­ba­go, said the recog­ni­tion was time­ly, giv­en the sea­son of giv­ing.

“To think of what you are do­ing—and that these ac­tiv­i­ties were not pub­licly known un­til now—is tru­ly com­mend­able. The hope you cre­ate in every per­son you touch would be a tragedy to go un­no­ticed,” Se­barath said.

Both Aun­ty Mar­lene and Re­nalon ex­pressed their com­mit­ment to con­tin­ue mak­ing a dif­fer­ence.

“Get­ting some­thing like this makes you feel good,” said Aun­ty Mar­lene.

“This is a touch­ing ac­knowl­edge­ment,” added Re­nalon.

Their achieve­ments were al­so con­sid­ered for the Re­gion­al Un­sung He­roes Award, which this year was won by Lu­cin­da “Mi­ni” Smith of Tor­to­la, British Vir­gin Is­lands.