JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, March 8, 2025

Ra­moutar leads the march...

Hindus in Tobago

by

20091018

Rayan Ra­moutar is one woman who is def­i­nite­ly go­ing places. Ra­moutar is the new­ly elect­ed pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Hin­du So­ci­ety (THS). Since tak­ing up the man­tle ear­li­er this year, Ra­moutar has been tak­ing the lead in the THS' thrust to get a tem­ple built on the is­land. Last Sat­ur­day at the THS's an­nu­al Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions in Low­lands, Orville Lon­don, the Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, gave To­ba­go's Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty the good news that the land for the tem­ple was be­ing sur­veyed and a deed would soon be pre­pared. Ra­moutar said, "We in To­ba­go have strug­gled for years for a tem­ple in To­ba­go. The bat­tle start­ed with Ms Pearl Beepath, our trea­sur­er and im­me­di­ate past pres­i­dent. "A tem­ple on the is­land would add some lev­el of iden­ti­ty and act as a uni­fy­ing force for us here in To­ba­go. Our num­bers on the sis­ter is­land are small but we are strong."

Ra­moutar's love af­fair with To­ba­go start­ed three years ago when she re­lo­cat­ed from her home in Bras­so Ve­na­do in Cen­tral, to work as co-or­di­na­tor of the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Skills Cen­tre (NESC) there. She is the hold­er of a mas­ter's de­gree in food sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy (UWI) and is now the co-or­di­na­tor for To­ba­go with the Na­tion­al Train­ing Agency. She plans on study­ing for her doc­tor­ate soon. Ra­moutar said un­der her watch, one of the key thrusts of the THS would be to ed­u­cate the peo­ple. "Ed­u­ca­tion is the key to em­pow­er­ment. Women es­pe­cial­ly should take an ac­tive role in em­pow­er­ing them­selves through ed­u­ca­tion and en­sur­ing that they and their chil­dren get the max­i­mum ben­e­fit that our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem has to of­fer," she said.

"The THS plans to take on an ed­u­ca­tion­al role that would not on­ly ben­e­fit its mem­bers, but the wider com­mu­ni­ty. We do not live in a vac­u­um, what­ev­er we do we want to en­sure that the wider com­mu­ni­ty ben­e­fits." Ra­moutar said the In­di­an High Com­mis­sion, un­der the present High Com­mis­sion­er, Malay Mishra, has of­fered sev­er­al schol­ar­ships to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly and the THS. They have al­so start­ed class­es in tabla and vo­cals at the Calder Hall Com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre with tu­tors from the Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi In­sti­tute for Cul­tur­al Co-op­er­a­tion. Ra­moutar said the class­es are open for all To­bag­o­ni­ans, and sev­er­al have al­ready in­di­cat­ed their in­ter­est to learn Hin­di.

Proud Hin­du woman

Proud to be a Hin­du woman, Ra­moutar said she was not afraid of pro­mot­ing and prop­a­gat­ing her cul­ture. "It hurts me deeply to see some­one ashamed of their cul­ture, our cul­ture...the cul­ture of our an­ces­tors who ar­rived here so many years ago rep­re­sents our her­itage; it says who we are, we can­not find true iden­ti­ty by adopt­ing the ways of oth­ers. "The eth­no­cen­tric ideals that were prop­a­gat­ed dur­ing the slav­ery and in­den­ture­ship pe­ri­od has sought to in­still a sense of shame in­to our peo­ple." Ac­cord­ing to Ra­moutar, to re­verse this comes on­ly from ed­u­ca­tion and on­ly from be­ing proud of who we are.

"I am not ashamed to wear a sari and at­tend a func­tion, it says who I am and sends a clear mes­sage." Ra­moutar said she was al­so con­cerned about crime on the sis­ter is­land. "Crime has an ug­ly face. Six­ty per cent of To­ba­go's econ­o­my is based on tourism, an in­dus­try that will out­last pe­tro­le­um, but crime has slipped in­to To­ba­go and cre­at­ed hav­oc. "We had the chop­ping of the British cou­ple, the dou­ble mur­der of two youth at French Fort. A long-term plan has to be drawn up to deal with crime be­fore this dis­ease spreads and be­come un­solv­able." Ra­moutar be­lieves that par­ents play an in­te­gral role in pre­vent­ing crime.

"It starts at home by be­ing a good role mod­el to our chil­dren, and when we go out we act as a bet­ter role mod­el to the chil­dren of our com­mu­ni­ty. We can­not let chil­dren slip through the cracks, this is T&T, our coun­try, and we have to be pa­tri­ot­ic de­spite our dif­fer­ences. At the end of the day, this is our coun­try." Ra­moutar said in 2010 the THS plans on cre­at­ing a Web site and in­creas­ing its mem­ber­ship dri­ve. "We are a part of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha. They are our gov­ern­ing body who have sup­port­ed us im­mense­ly in the past, and next year we look to them for some lev­el of guid­ance as we take a new path in the new year."

Good news:

Orville Lon­don, the Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, gave To­ba­go's Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty the good news that the land for the tem­ple was be­ing sur­veyed and a deed would soon be pre­pared.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored