Michelle Loubon

New­ly elect­ed Chair­man of the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Khadi­jah Ameen, said her pas­sion for young peo­ple at Cara­po Vil­lage reaf­firmed her com­mitt­ment to the world of pol­i­tics. Cara­po is a com­mu­ni­ty be­hind the San­ta Rosa, Ari­ma, Race­track. Last month she was sworn in at the cor­po­ra­tion's cham­ber at Cen­te­nary Street, Tu­na­puna. Among those present was her men­tor, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. And as T&T cel­e­brates Na­tion­al Youth Month, 29-year-old Ameen hopes her sto­ry will in­spire more youth to get in­volved in na­tion­al ser­vice and de­vel­op a sense of pa­tri­o­tism.

"My am­bi­tion is to serve peo­ple. I see my ap­point­ment as a nat­ur­al pro­gres­sion of what I was do­ing. It came about be­cause of my in­volve­ment in peo­ple's lives. My am­bi­tions are not aimed at hold­ing po­si­tions. I just want to con­tin­ue to serve and rep­re­sent peo­ple from all walks of life. "I want to help the young peo­ple. I hope I can be an in­spi­ra­tion to them in some small way. If God wants you to serve in a po­si­tion he puts you there," said Ameen.

Labour­ing at Cara­po

Re­flect­ing on her teenaged years, Ameen, then 15, said when she ob­served the lev­els of pover­ty and il­lit­er­a­cy in the com­mu­ni­ty, she was not con­tent to be an idle by­stander, and she got down in the trench­es. "I re­alised there were chil­dren get­ting ready for Com­mon En­trance (now SEA) and they could bare­ly read and write. I was ap­palled. I start­ed giv­ing them lessons at my home at no cost," she said. Word spread like wild­fire. Soon, she was teach­ing in­fants their ABCs and teach­ing gram­mar and Math­e­mat­i­cal for­mu­lae to post-pri­ma­ry stu­dents.

"From an ear­ly age, I be­came very in­volved in com­mu­ni­ty ac­tiv­i­ties. I was tu­tor­ing chil­dren for oth­er class­es." Like chil­dren and some young peo­ple, Ameen re­alised adults couldn't fill out their pass­port forms or im­por­tant doc­u­ments. "They couldn't read prop­er­ly. They didn't un­der­stand the ques­tions. A num­ber of par­ents were se­mi-lit­er­ate. When it came to ap­ply­ing for ser­vices, they had prob­lems. I be­gan to help them." For many fam­i­lies, ba­sic ne­ces­si­ties like food, cloth­ing and shel­ter was a lux­u­ry.

"I be­gan to reach out to out­side agen­cies and NGOs that help the un­der­priv­i­leged. I be­gan to as­sist them in de­liv­er­ing food ham­pers to the peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty." Ameen lent her or­gan­i­sa­tion­al skills to youth and sport­ing events, too. "We had a youth and sport or­gan­i­sa­tion and I took part." She said she no­ticed a lot of im­prove­ment was com­ing to the lives of these peo­ple un­der the Bas­deo Pan­day led Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC). "I re­alised the UNC was in gov­ern­ment.

I saw the ef­fect its pro­grammes and poli­cies were hav­ing on the peo­ple. I saw a gov­ern­ment at work, in­tent on im­prov­ing the lives of cit­i­zens." Vow­ing to con­tin­ue lift­ing cit­i­zens out of the depths of degra­da­tion and de­spair, Ameen said she threw her hat in­to the po­lit­i­cal ring. While await­ing A'lev­el re­sults, she be­gan cam­paign­ing. Her valiant move was ce­ment­ed when she be­came a coun­cil­lor at 21. "It was a chal­lenge for me and I chose to op­er­ate as a coun­cil­lor full time. I have been a coun­cil­lor for sev­en years," she said.

Tack­ling youth un­em­ploy­ment

Now that Ameen is Chair­man, un­em­ploy­ment among the youth re­mains one of her ma­jor con­cerns. "Un­em­ploy­ment is a big is­sue. We have to cre­ate av­enues for sus­tain­able em­ploy­ment for the youth. We want to cre­ate a mean­ing­ful en­vi­ron­ment where mi­cro busi­ness­es can thrive."

Nat­u­ral­ly, she said, a clean en­vi­ron­ment with­out "rats, mos­qui­toes and bro­ken man­holes would make Tu­na­puna's streets, towns and vil­lages more con­ducive to mi­cro en­ter­prise." "We will be deal­ing with our burgess­es with a hu­man face while tak­ing a no-non­sense ap­proach to meet­ing the needs of peo­ple." As she em­barks on an­oth­er leg of her po­lit­i­cal odyssey, Per­sad-Bisses­sar's mantra re­mains etched in her men­tal archives: "Serve the Peo­ple; Serve the Peo­ple; Serve the Peo­ple."

Ameen says thanks

Ameen thanked her team and her fam­i­ly for their un­stint­ing sup­port.

"I have to thank my sis­ter-in-law, An­drea, and my moth­er, Hazel. She keeps me ground­ed. I would read my speech to her for feed­back. She is my harsh­est crit­ic. She quit her job to take care of my son." Ameen will be as­sist­ed by Deputy Chair­man, Rosan­na Sookoo, and CEO Mar­va Carter as she "bears of­fice in the spir­it of pru­dence, char­i­ty and jus­tice."

ABOUT kHADI­JAH AMEEN

Her par­ents are Muham­mad and Hazel Ameen. She grew up in Va­len­cia and at­tend­ed the near­by Gov­ern­ment pri­ma­ry school. She of­ten horse­played with her broth­ers Yunus, Isa and Ha­roon. The self-de­scribed "proud Geor­gian" at­tend­ed St George's Col­lege, in Barataria. To­day, she is pur­su­ing a BSc in Gov­ern­ment and ma­jor­ing in Eco­nom­ics at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine. Apart from a whirl­wind of burgess­es, wed­dings, wakes and fu­ner­als, Ameen nur­tures her four-year-old son Je­re­mi­ah. "I al­ways make an ef­fort to take care of him. I try to spend time with him. I drop him to school and spend as much qual­i­ty time as I could. There's no oth­er feel­ing than when he holds my hand or gives me a hug."