Eight-year-old Aaron Kun­jan be­came the first T&T na­tion­al to es­cort a play­er at the Fi­fa World Cup, when the Pe­nal Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry stu­dent walked out on­to the field at the Mara­cana Sta­di­um in Brazil, on Fri­day.

Kun­jan, who got the rare op­por­tu­ni­ty af­ter win­ning the grand prize of the Mc­Don­ald's Play­er Es­cort pro­gramme, ear­li­er this year, walked on­to the pitch be­fore the World Cup quar­ter­fi­nal fix­ture be­tween France and Ger­many hold­ing hands with French winger An­toine Griez­mann.

Kun­jan and all oth­er es­corts spe­cial uni­forms and the icon­ic Ronald Mc­Don­ald stock­ing to com­mem­o­rate the 40th an­niver­sary of the Ronald Mc­Don­ald House Char­i­ties.

The char­i­ty pro­vides in­valu­able sup­port through fam­i­ly-cen­tred pro­grammes that serve more than sev­en mil­lion chil­dren and fam­i­lies an­nu­al­ly around the world.

Kun­jan, as ex­pect­ed was elat­ed for the ex­pe­ri­ence. "I was so hap­py to rep­re­sent my coun­try dur­ing the quar­ter­fi­nal game. It was a very proud and life-chang­ing mo­ment for me," he said fol­low­ing the match which Ger­many won 1-0.

"I was re­al­ly glad to walk on­to the field with oth­er es­corts and play­ers from France. It was an amaz­ing ex­pe­ri­ence." Kun­jan added.

He walked on­to the pitch of the Mara­cana Sta­di­um, one of the most icon­ic foot­ball are­nas in the world, to­geth­er with chil­dren from sev­er­al coun­tries in­clud­ing Ro­ma­nia, Aus­tria, Mo­roc­co, Cana­da, Cu­ra­cao and Brazil.

As part of the pro­gramme in Brazil, Kun­jan vis­it­ed cul­tur­al at­trac­tions in Rio de Janeiro and al­so played his own friend­ly match at the Rio Fla­men­go train­ing field along with oth­er chil­dren from vis­it­ing coun­tries.

This year, Mc­Don­ald's has pro­vid­ed more than 1,408 chil­dren (ages six to ten) from 69 coun­tries, which marks the largest num­ber of coun­tries par­tic­i­pat­ing in the pro­gramme since the brand be­gan spon­sor­ing it in 2002. Five chil­dren from the Caribbean were se­lect­ed to rep­re­sent their coun­tries in­clud­ing Puer­to Ri­co, Cu­ra­cao, Mar­tinique, Guade­loupe and T&T.

Kun­jan and his fa­ther, Ronald Kun­jan, who spent four days and three nights in Brazil were sched­uled to re­turn home yes­ter­day.

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