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Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Debe celebrates scholarship winner

by

Radhica De Silva
2454 days ago
20181102
Oropouche East MP Roodal Moonilal, left, gives a token of appreciation to scholarship winner Shiva Balliram, of Debe High School, for Environmental Sciences. Looking on at right, Debe High School Principal Romeo Gunness.

Oropouche East MP Roodal Moonilal, left, gives a token of appreciation to scholarship winner Shiva Balliram, of Debe High School, for Environmental Sciences. Looking on at right, Debe High School Principal Romeo Gunness.

Kristian De Silva

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Use ad­ver­si­ty as an op­por­tu­ni­ty for suc­cess, prin­ci­pal of Debe Sec­ondary School Romeo Gun­ness said as his school ho­n­oured their lone schol­ar­ship win­ner Shi­va Bal­li­ram dur­ing their Di­vali cel­e­bra­tion yes­ter­day.

Bal­li­ram is the first pupil in six years to win a schol­ar­ship at the school, af­ter his cousin, Shanisa Sab­dar­ali won a schol­ar­ship in busi­ness stud­ies in 2012. Prais­ing Bal­li­ram for his as­sertive­ness, dis­ci­pline and self-mo­ti­va­tion, Gun­ness said Bal­li­ram was an ex­am­ple of some­one who used ad­ver­si­ty as an op­por­tu­ni­ty.

Gun­ness said un­der his stew­ard­ship, Debe Sec­ondary stu­dents have ex­celled with 100 per cent pass­es at the Caribbean Ad­vanced Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tion (CAPE) and 85 per cent at Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC).

“We need or­der and dis­ci­pline in every­thing. Here in Debe Sec­ondary, we cre­ate an en­vi­ron­ment for learn­ing where we em­pha­sise dis­ci­pline, spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, hard work and per­se­ver­ance,” Gun­ness said.

He said stu­dents who face ad­ver­si­ty must be­come mo­ti­vat­ed by their dif­fi­cul­ties.

“No mat­ter the sit­u­a­tion you can use ad­ver­si­ty to mo­ti­vate and pro­pel you for ex­cel­lence,” Gun­ness said.

Bal­li­ram, in an in­ter­view, said he used to trav­el home af­ter school, tak­ing two taxis to reach to Mt Stew­art Vil­lage in Princes Town. He said he nev­er found trav­el­ling dif­fi­cult.

“When I got home, I would eat din­ner and take a one-hour rest and af­ter that, I would do my work con­sis­tent­ly un­til about 11 pm,” Bal­li­ram said. He added that he nev­er took ex­tra lessons but worked with his school teach­ers Kavi­ta Dhan­raj, Sh­eryl Rag­bir and Lal Jaimun­gal. His Dean In­di­ra Boodram guid­ed him from Form One and Bal­li­ram said his prin­ci­pal was his men­tor.

“He would tell me to put or­der and de­cen­cy in every­thing and this is what I used as my per­son­al prin­ci­ple,” Bal­li­ram said.

He not­ed that his par­ents Bis­soon­di­al and Rekha Bal­li­ram were very sup­port­ive of him and en­cour­aged him to achieve his goals.

Bal­li­ram added that his grand­moth­er Dia­mat­tie Be­har­ry al­so gave him guid­ance.

Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, who spoke at the event, urged pupils to be in­spired by Bal­li­ram’s suc­cess.

“I am hop­ing that Shi­va will in­spire you. He is a role mod­el and what­ev­er you feel you can­not do well in schools, test, books, al­ways re­flect on Shi­va’s own life,” Mooni­lal said.

He added that there is a per­cep­tion that some peo­ple can­not ex­cel be­cause of their looks, the com­mu­ni­ty they live in or the school they at­tend.

“This is not al­ways true. All of you are ca­pa­ble of ex­celling,” Mooni­lal added.

He told stu­dents they must al­ways be­lieve in them­selves, adding that he will arrange for Bal­li­ram to get a spe­cial to­ken of ap­pre­ci­a­tion for his suc­cess.


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