Nass­er Khan

To­day, our na­tion cel­e­brates 56 years since its in­de­pen­dence from Britain in 1962.

In cel­e­brat­ing this an­niver­sary we look back at those who have con­tributed to the de­vel­op­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go—those he­roes, pi­o­neers and role mod­els who have used their tal­ents in build­ing our na­tion.

Their achieve­ments and ex­cel­lence should be trum­pet­ed par­tic­u­lar­ly for the sake of young peo­ple so that they learn about, ap­pre­ci­ate and be in­spired by their con­tri­bu­tions.

There have been many he­roes, pi­o­neers and role mod­els in our na­tion’s his­to­ry, all pro­filed in the book He­roes, Pi­o­neers & Role Mod­els of Trinidad & To­ba­go which was dis­trib­uted to all schools and li­braries cour­tesy State-owned com­mer­cial bank First Cit­i­zens.

It is al­so avail­able for read­ing on­line at www.sa­faripub­li­ca­tions.com/firstc­i­t­i­zen­stt/he­roe­spro­filestt/. For in­for­ma­tion on ac­quir­ing a copy of this pub­li­ca­tion, email ourheroestt@gmail.com.

For a coun­try like ours to have reached where it has to­day, through the pe­ri­ods of be­ing “dis­cov­ered,” “fought for,” “set­tled” up­on, slav­ery, in­den­ture­ship, labour move­ments, the join­ing of Trinidad with To­ba­go in 1889, to its in­de­pen­dence in 1962 and the more mod­ern era, in­volved many he­roes, pi­o­neers and role mod­els over all those years.

For ex­am­ple, dur­ing the ear­ly years from around the 1770’s un­til the ear­ly 1900’s, such he­roes, pi­o­neers and role mod­els in­clud­ed Roume de St Lau­rent, Gros Jean, John Ja­cob Thomas, Jonas Bath and Em­manuel Mzum­bo Lazare, im­por­tant peo­ple who have fad­ed in­to his­to­ry and some of you prob­a­bly have nev­er heard about.

The he­roes, pi­o­neers and role mod­els of Trinidad and To­ba­go are those who have made im­por­tant and pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tions to our coun­try’s de­vel­op­ment, from the ear­ly days, the colo­nial gov­er­nors and our na­tion’s mod­ern lead­ers who have paved and con­tin­ue to pave the way for oth­ers to fol­low.

Such peo­ple in­clude our na­tion­al lead­ers, peo­ple in the var­i­ous fields of hu­man en­deav­our: agri­cul­ture, busi­ness, com­mu­ni­ty and so­cial work, cul­ture and the arts, eco­nom­ics, ed­u­ca­tion/lit­er­a­cy, en­vi­ron­ment, fash­ion and beau­ty pageants, law, med­i­cine, oil, pol­i­tics, pub­lic ser­vice, ra­dio and tele­vi­sion, re­li­gion, sci­ence, en­gi­neer­ing and ar­chi­tec­ture, sports, trade union­ism, writ­ing/jour­nal­ism.

The peo­ple who fall in­to these cat­e­gories are list­ed here­un­der.

Em­pha­sis is placed on those born in Trinidad and To­ba­go and those born else­where but who have spent an im­por­tant part of their lives here mak­ing im­por­tant con­tri­bu­tions to our coun­try’s de­vel­op­ment and im­por­tance around the globe.