RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath is call­ing on all cit­i­zens to do what they can to help oth­ers, em­pha­sis­ing that even small acts of ser­vice can il­lu­mi­nate lives and com­mu­ni­ties.

Speak­ing at a Di­vali cel­e­bra­tion at the JC Mc­Don­ald Home for the Aged in San Fer­nan­do, Dr Dowlath said Di­vali holds a spe­cial mean­ing for the up­lift­ment of hu­man­i­ty.

“Let us car­ry for­ward with that small act of light­ing that deya. Let us con­tin­ue to vis­it those who are lone­ly, feed those who are hun­gry, and lis­ten to their un­told sto­ries,” Dowlath said, as he recog­nised the con­tri­bu­tions of long-time ed­u­ca­tors and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers who have in­spired ser­vice, in­clud­ing Dr Alan McKen­zie, his for­mer prin­ci­pal, and for­mer Works Min­is­ter Sadiq Baksh, who taught him about the streets and peo­ple of San Fer­nan­do West.

The min­is­ter al­so high­light­ed the work of Chan­dresh Shar­ma, Pan­dit At­ma Ma­haraj, and oth­ers who ded­i­cat­ed their lives to serv­ing the el­der­ly and vul­ner­a­ble.

“As we cel­e­brate this Di­vali, we cel­e­brate a na­tion­al mo­ment—a mo­ment of uni­ty, a mo­ment of car­ing, a mo­ment of hope. I want to salute the res­i­dents here at the JC Mc­Don­ald Home—your jour­neys, your mem­o­ries, your dig­ni­ty. May this evening be a re­minder that you are ho­n­oured, val­ued, and seen by all of us.”

Dowlath re­mind­ed at­ten­dees that the spir­it of Di­vali tran­scends re­li­gious and cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences, serv­ing as a call for col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and com­pas­sion.

“We live in a coun­try of di­ver­si­ty; to­geth­er we as­pire, and to­geth­er we achieve. Let us re­spect the lega­cy of those who served be­fore us and con­tin­ue to build new lega­cies by serv­ing hu­man­i­ty,” he said.

He al­so thanked the care­givers and vol­un­teers who con­tin­ue to give their time and ef­fort, say­ing their work is vi­tal to the lives of the el­der­ly and de­serv­ing of na­tion­al recog­ni­tion.