The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is mourn­ing the pass­ing of one of its stal­warts, the late Joyce­lyn McLeod Smith.

Hailed as a trail­blaz­er for youth and a pi­o­neer for women in the PNM, in her con­stituen­cy of Barataria/San Juan and across the coun­try, the PNM says her ded­i­ca­tion, pas­sion, strong work eth­ic and her po­lit­i­cal as­tute­ness were eas­i­ly rec­og­nized, ad­mired and ap­pre­ci­at­ed.

"Joyce­lyn en­tered the po­lit­i­cal are­na in the 1960s when she joined the PNM in the then Barataria con­stituen­cy, and went on to be­come the Chair­man of that con­stituen­cy’s youth league. Her strong ad­vo­ca­cy and ac­tivism set the stage for her to be tak­en se­ri­ous­ly as a young fe­male in the po­lit­i­cal are­na. Hav­ing gar­nered the sup­port of the ma­jor­i­ty of the then Con­stituen­cy Youth Leagues, she suc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenged for the Chair­man­ship of the PNM’s Na­tion­al Youth League, and thus holds the dis­tinc­tion of be­ing the first fe­male to be elect­ed as the Chair­man of the PNM’s Na­tion­al Youth League. She set a high stan­dard for all who fol­lowed in her foot­steps in that port­fo­lio," a state­ment by the par­ty says.

It added that the chair­man of the then South Port-of-Spain Con­stituen­cy Youth League, Hamil­ton ‘Bun­ny’ Chrysos­tom, served along­side her as the Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer of the Na­tion­al Youth League.

"He re­called that un­der her lead­er­ship, and with the sup­port of then Po­lit­i­cal Leader and Prime Min­is­ter Dr. Er­ic Williams, the PNM’s Na­tion­al Youth League host­ed a con­cert in the Queen’s Park Oval, ti­tled “Ex­pres­sion 71”. Youth rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Trinidad and To­ba­go, and across the Caribbean at­tend­ed the high­ly suc­cess­ful event. It was a wa­ter­shed oc­ca­sion for the youth of the re­gion," the par­ty's state­ment says.

It added that she went on to serve on the PNM’s Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive as the par­ty’s Na­tion­al Youth Of­fi­cer - Fe­male, along­side the late Mor­ris Mar­shall, who served as the Na­tion­al Youth Of­fi­cer - Male.

"Those un­der her guid­ance re­mem­ber her as sharp yet gen­tle. Al­der­man Richard Wal­cott, who served on the PNM’s Na­tion­al Youth League when Joyce­lyn was the Youth Of­fi­cer Fe­male, re­mem­bers Joyce­lyn for her great lead­er­ship as was ev­i­denced when he was a part of a del­e­ga­tion field­ed by the PNM’s Na­tion­al Youth League and head­ed by Joyce­lyn, to a con­fer­ence in Ja­maica. Joyce­lyn was ded­i­cat­ed to Trinidad and To­ba­go, and did all that she could to rep­re­sent her coun­try to the best of her abil­i­ty. She worked at the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board, at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Con­sulate in New York, and at the T&T Em­bassy in Wash­ing­ton DC, and served with dis­tinc­tion in every sphere."

The state­ment says the PNM com­mis­er­ates with her daugh­ter, Giselle, her grand­daugh­ter, and her en­tire fam­i­ly, and con­do­lences are ex­tend­ed.