Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

For the par­ents of 11-year-old Rachel Bhag­wan­deen it was heart­break­ing to be in­vit­ed Pres­i­dent’s House to re­ceive the na­tion­al award that their daugh­ter earned posthu­mous­ly. Bhag­wan­deen died just over a year ago pro­tect­ing her broth­er when a neigh­bour’s dog ran in­to their house and at­tacked them. Her broth­er sur­vived.

She was posthu­mous­ly award­ed the Hum­ming Bird Medal Bronze for Gal­lantry.

Her fa­ther Kelvin Bhag­wan­deen called it a sad mo­ment for them, and ac­knowl­edged there was shock when he re­ceived the phone call.

“For us it is dif­fi­cult be­cause one, she’s re­ceiv­ing and award, but she’s not here to en­joy it,” he said. “It’s an award, but she’s not here.”

Fight­ing back tears sev­er­al times while speak­ing to the me­dia, Bhag­wan­deen said a year has passed but they still miss her, say­ing it’s a new chal­lenge hav­ing to move on.

“We have lost a loved one. She has just be­come a mem­o­ry to us that we have to hold on to, to car­ry on each and every day,” he said.

When Bhag­wan­deen ac­cept­ed the award there was a mo­ment with Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley. He said he was touched by the words the Prime Min­is­ter shared with him.

“He told me ‘We share your loss, we share your heart­break,’” he​ re­vealed.

“That in it­self was touch­ing. Every­one who knows sto­ry about Rachel, it touched them in some way or the oth­er is that it was a self­less act that Rachel did to pro­tect her broth­er. But that is the kind of per­son who she is. And it says a lot about her at the end of the day be­cause she and her broth­er are very close. Every­thing they do to­geth­er. And for Rachel to step in and pro­tect him. She was just do­ing what came nat­ur­al to her.”

It’s what her moth­er, Seema, said as well.

“I know that she is look­ing down and she would be proud that you know, that I did this for my broth­er and I’m here with you all, but I know she’s look­ing down. I know that the loss of Rachel could nev­er be re­placed but we are grate­ful for the award that you know, it is rec­og­niz­able by a na­tion that she laid on her life for her broth­er and the fam­i­ly would nev­er be able to live but we have to learn to sur­vive and learn to re­build.”

One of the three re­cip­i­ents of the na­tion’s high­est award, the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Pro­fes­sor Path­manathan Uma­ha­ran, who is orig­i­nal­ly from Sri Lan­ka says he was elat­ed to re­ceive this na­tion’s high­est awards. He’s been in this coun­try for 33 years and now calls Trinidad his adopt­ed coun­try.

Uma­ha­ran says co­coa is the fu­ture of earn­ing for­eign ex­change be­yond oil and gas.

“Be­cause of the rep­u­ta­tion for our co­coa, as well as the kind of soils and en­vi­ron­ments we have, I think we need to put our ef­forts to­geth­er to build the in­dus­try, not on­ly in pro­duc­tion, pro­duc­ing co­coa, but al­so adding val­ue to it, “ Pro­fes­sor Uma­ha­ran said. “So that we sell not on­ly co­coa beans, but choco­lates and bev­er­ages and var­i­ous oth­er val­ue-added prod­ucts in­to the very high-end niche mar­ket.

When asked if the award might help get him the recog­ni­tion he needs to get that in­vest­ment he said he hoped so.

Look­ing to the fu­ture he said co­coa needs to be as syn­ony­mous with T&T as Car­ni­val, steel­pan and oil and gas. He said apart from pro­duc­ing co­coa and prod­ucts, we need to ask how we can makeT&T, the Ser­vice Cen­tre for Co­coa.

The re­turn of the Na­tion­al Awards 2023 to Pres­i­dent’s House, St Ann’s last evening brought sev­er­al wel­come changes in­clud­ing the in­clu­sion of stu­dents in the for­mal pro­ceed­ings.

Guests were pleas­ant­ly sur­prised to learn at the start of the event, that the read­ing of the awardees’ bi­ogra­phies would were go­ing to be read by stu­dents from schools across T&T, in­stead of the pres­i­dent’s aide-de-camp.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia af­ter the cer­e­mo­ny Kel­lice York from To­co Sec­ondary School, one of 15 “pi­o­neers” acho­sen to read the bi­ogra­phies of the awardees, gushed about the op­por­tu­ni­ty.

“It was a re­al­ly fun ex­pe­ri­ence be­cause we got to meet the Pres­i­dent. Al­so a re­al­ly good ex­pe­ri­ence in terms of your re­sume. And in terms of your ca­reer paths, I must say, I do want to be a jour­nal­ist as well. So I’m com­ing for your job!” She beamed.

Ak­i­ba Coop­er, from Cowen Hamil­ton Sec­ondary School and Elysha from Cou­va East Sec­ondary School, felt the op­por­tu­ni­ty was one not to be missed.

“It was so in­for­ma­tive to learn about every­thing per­tain­ing to the pres­i­dent and her res­i­den­cy, I learned so much new things on Well, I im­proved on my read­ing skills and pub­lic speak­ing and meet­ing new peo­ple from dif­fer­ent schools. It was to­tal­ly ten out of ten ex­pe­ri­ence,” Coop­er said.

“I loved it. It re­al­ly was good for a per­son who is shy com­ing out and speak­ing to the pub­lic about cer­tain things. It’s very ben­e­fi­cial to me to fur­ther my job op­por­tu­ni­ties,” Williams added.