Carisa Lee & An­na-Lisa Paul

Elec­tri­cian Ak­il Des Vi­gnes says his fam­i­ly re­mains ec­sta­t­ic about his Hum­ming­bird Medal (Bronze) for gal­lantry, fol­low­ing his hero­ic act of sav­ing a four-year-old child from se­ri­ous harm at the Carousel Park, Movi­eTowne, Port-of-Spain, in Ju­ly.

What start­ed as a fun Sun­day to the amuse­ment park with his fam­i­ly, end­ed with Des Vi­gnes rush­ing in to save the young child, who was cling­ing to the Fer­ris Wheel high above the ground for dear life.

Short­ly af­ter ac­cept­ing his na­tion­al award at Queen's Hall, St Ann's, yes­ter­day, the fa­ther of two daugh­ters said, “They feel very proud. My small­est daugh­ter is four years old, so she doesn't ful­ly com­pre­hend every­thing yet. My old­est daugh­ter, ten years old, is very ex­cit­ed about every­thing. She can't stop thank­ing me and con­grat­u­lat­ing me about the whole sit­u­a­tion.”

Me­dia prac­ti­tion­er Ivan Toolsie, who was ho­n­oured with the Cha­co­nia Medal (Sil­ver) for his 40 years of work in the sphere of Film and Me­dia, al­so shared, “I was stunned—I was lost for words. My col­leagues told me I had to keep it con­fi­den­tial, so I had to whis­per in the sur­round­ings where I was when I re­ceived the mes­sage from the Pres­i­dent’s House.”

He ac­knowl­edged, “As jour­nal­ists, we need to re­al­ly stick to the job, stick to what we do, and then good will come back. For ex­am­ple, this award—I nev­er thought I was go­ing to get it. It is the re­ward of hard work and be­ing fair in do­ing our job.”

A posthu­mous award was con­ferred on for­mer Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing min­is­ter, Fazal Karim, for his con­tri­bu­tion in the sphere of ed­u­ca­tion.

While his wife Judy Karim ac­cept­ed the award, Karim’s daugh­ter, Rhon­da Karim, said, “We were so, so hap­py and grate­ful.”

Thank­ing the Gov­ern­ment and all those who deemed it fit for her fa­ther to be giv­en this award, she ad­mit­ted, “We were ec­sta­t­ic at first when we got the news but it al­so comes with a bit of sor­row. For me per­son­al­ly, I wish he was here him­self to re­ceive it. For me to em­brace him, to see his thou­sand-watt smile, and to say, Dad, I'm so proud of you.”

She went on, “But I know where he is, he’s very hap­py, and I’m so grate­ful for him to be ho­n­oured in this great­est of ways on be­half of the na­tion for his great and en­dur­ing con­tri­bu­tion.

“I didn’t even un­der­stand how much we did with ed­u­ca­tion in this coun­try and how much we changed the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.”