An­drew Dhanoo, Pres­i­dent of the Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (DATT) says with the suc­cess of the Na­tion­al Di­a­betes School Quiz at­tract­ing more than 400 com­peti­tors from over 100 schools, the as­so­ci­a­tion is con­sid­er­ing tak­ing the com­pe­ti­tion re­gion­al­ly next year.

He was speak­ing at The Na­tion­al Di­a­betes School Quiz 2022, host­ed by the DATT and Ro­tary Clubs of T&T, held at the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion Au­di­to­ri­um, on Sat­ur­day. Fif­teen fi­nal­ists from pri­ma­ry schools across the coun­try com­pet­ed to be crowned the win­ner.

Dhanoo said "Next year we're hop­ing to do this as a re­gion­al school quiz, not just in Trinidad, we're go­ing to have a na­tion­al school quiz in every coun­try and then have the fi­nals in one of the coun­tries."
She said we have many chil­dren liv­ing with di­a­betes in school. "What we need to do is teach teach­ers, prin­ci­pals and oth­er mem­bers of staff how to deal with chil­dren with di­a­betes and al­so how to pre­vent di­a­betes. The as­so­ci­a­tion will be do­ing a pi­lot project soon with Dr Ber­nice Dy­er-Reg­is, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and the Min­istry of Health.

"We'll start with the teach­ers, the chil­dren with di­a­betes, then we want to go to every sin­gle school in T&T and ed­u­cate at least one ed­u­ca­tor, teacher or prin­ci­pal about di­a­betes and what should be done to pre­vent di­a­betes and take care of of a child with di­a­betes."

Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh brought chil­dren, par­ents, Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T Pres­i­dent Ra­jiv Diptee, and DATT Pres­i­dent An­drew Dhanoo on stage with him urg­ing them to down­load a pe­dome­ter app and count steps.

He told the au­di­ence that the min­istry will be launch­ing its TT Moves ini­tia­tive to en­cour­age mem­bers of the pub­lic to en­gage in a health­i­er lifestyle.

Deyals­ingh said too many cit­i­zens stayed home and led a seden­tary life. He called on T&T to use the free app, walk more and get ac­tive. He made a spe­cial plea to the el­der­ly to get more ac­tive.

Top 3 stu­dents

The top three stu­dents in the Na­tion­al Di­a­betes School Quiz are:

1st: Dy­lan Clif­ford, St Bernadette's Prepara­to­ry School

2nd: Xavier Teles­ford, St Xavier's Pri­vate School

3rd: Kate Lee Young, St Bernadette's Prepara­to­ry School