Mrs. Ali­cia Ram­dass

Project Co­or­di­na­tor, DATT

The Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry School Di­a­betes Quiz 2022 was host­ed by the Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (DATT) and eleven (11) Ro­tary Clubs from across Trinidad and To­ba­go. The ac­tiv­i­ty in­volved ap­prox­i­mate­ly 400 stu­dents en­rolled in Stan­dard three (3) across the coun­try. Since schools were op­er­at­ing re­mote­ly, the quiz was ini­ti­at­ed with the pre­lim­i­nary round through an on­line plat­form.

This plat­form al­lowed us to reach chil­dren from about two hun­dred (200) schools with a sin­gle link shared through­out the school dis­tricts, sup­port­ing or­ga­ni­za­tions and on so­cial me­dia.

Chil­dren were able to ac­cess the re­source ma­te­ri­als and en­ter the quiz through this on­line plat­form at their con­ve­nience.

Adopt­ing Healthy Habits

The aim of the quiz was to ed­u­cate chil­dren, par­ents/guardians and teach­ers about di­a­betes, its caus­es, signs/symp­toms, com­pli­ca­tions with a sig­nif­i­cant fo­cus on pre­ven­tion and well­ness, through a fun and in­ter­ac­tive for­mat. The quiz fa­cil­i­tat­ed this in­tro­duc­tion of di­a­betes ed­u­ca­tion through com­pe­ti­tion and gam­i­fi­ca­tion which en­sured that chil­dren were mo­ti­vat­ed to learn about the dis­ease.

“We en­cour­age chil­dren (and their fam­i­lies) to adopt healthy habits through the pro­gramme sur­round­ing the quiz. Chil­dren who eat health­ily are more ac­tive and tend to flour­ish as they grow in­to healthy adults. Through health ed­u­ca­tion fun­nelled through their chil­dren at school, fam­i­lies thrive as they achieve all-around well­ness,” shared An­drew Dhanoo, Pres­i­dent of DATT.

The stages of the quiz

Af­ter the pre­lim­i­nary round, the top forty-five (45) stu­dents were in­vit­ed to the se­mi-fi­nal round which took the form of a writ­ten quiz held at the DATT Head Of­fice in Ch­agua­nas. The top fif­teen (15) stu­dents were cho­sen for the fi­nal round which was held at the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion on Sat­ur­day 21st May 2022.

The Fi­nal Day in­volved the top 15 stu­dents, with each stu­dent ran­dom­ly se­lect­ing a ques­tion pre­pared based on the ed­u­ca­tion ma­te­ri­als pro­vid­ed in 3 new rounds, Easy-Medi­um-Hard. The judges de­ter­mined the ac­cu­ra­cy of each an­swer.

The judges were:

-Dr. Bri­an Cock­burn

-Dr. Safeeya Mo­hammed

-Mrs. Odessa Vin­cent-Brown

The ex­cite­ment was am­pli­fied as we in­tro­duced el­e­ments of chances and hints. In­cor­rect an­swers un­for­tu­nate­ly meant stu­dents were elim­i­nat­ed un­til the on­ly per­son left was the stu­dent that an­swered the most num­ber of ques­tions cor­rect­ly. This stu­dent was crowned the win­ner!!!

The ex­cite­ment un­fold­ed

At the end of an ex­cit­ing nine­ty (90) minute fi­nal round, 9-year-old Dy­lan Clif­ford of Holy Faith Prep- St. Bernadette’s School emerged the win­ner as he cor­rect­ly an­swered the ques­tion, “What is the name of the di­a­bet­ic eye con­di­tion that is char­ac­ter­ized by pe­riph­er­al vi­sion loss?”. With much con­fi­dence he was able to give the cor­rect an­swer “glau­co­ma”, al­low­ing him to win the com­pe­ti­tion ahead of the first run­ner up Xavier Teles­ford of St. Xavier’s Pri­vate School.

The chil­dren were then treat­ed to a mag­ic show by Julio the Ma­gi­cian who was able to break the ten­sion and wow the au­di­ence with his il­lu­sions.

The Award Cer­e­mo­ny

The award cer­e­mo­ny then fol­lowed with greet­ings from the Pres­i­dent of the DATT, Mr. An­drew Dhanoo who an­nounced the ex­pan­sion of the quiz across the Caribbean. Sup­port­ed by col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­forts of the Ro­tary Clubs with­in the Dis­trict 7030 and Di­a­betes Mem­ber As­so­ci­a­tions in the North Amer­i­can and Caribbean Re­gion of the In­ter­na­tion­al Di­a­betes Fed­er­a­tion, this can be achieved. Mrs. Maria Mo­hammed-Maraj, the As­sis­tant Dis­trict Gov­er­nor for East Trinidad, rep­re­sent­ing the eleven (11) par­tic­i­pat­ing Ro­tary Clubs, de­liv­ered her ad­dress to ce­ment the Ro­tary Clubs com­mit­ment to­wards in­creas­ing di­a­betes ed­u­ca­tion and re­duc­tion of child­hood obe­si­ty. This was fol­lowed by re­marks from Ra­jiv Diptee, Pres­i­dent of the Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SATT), with many of their mem­bers in­clud­ing S&S Per­sad Su­per­mar­ket, Xtra Foods, The Price Club and Per­sad’s ‘D’ Food King spon­sor­ing var­i­ous as­pects of the quiz.

The Min­is­ter of Health, the Hon. Ter­rence Deyals­ingh then took to the stage and in­vit­ed chil­dren and their par­ents to join him. His per­ti­nent mes­sage was to in­crease dai­ly phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty in a mea­sur­able for­mat, in­creas­ing your steps. He en­cour­aged the au­di­ence to down­load a pe­dome­ter app to track this.

With all en­trants be­ing award­ed cer­tifi­cates of par­tic­i­pa­tion and all se­mi-fi­nal­ists and fi­nal­ists win­ning medals, ham­pers and oth­er prizes, we are grate­ful to our spon­sors and part­ners for their sup­port.

The win­ners of

the quiz were:

1st place - Dy­lan Clif­ford from Holy Faith

Prep- St. Bernadette’s School

1st run­ner up- Xavier Teles­ford from

St. Xavier’s Pri­vate School

2nd run­ner up - Kate Lee Young from Holy Faith Prep- St. Bernadette’s School