SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­l­sandy@gmail.com

If younger gen­er­a­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go have nev­er heard the beau­ti­ful sto­ries or ful­ly ex­pe­ri­enced the rich, vi­brant cul­tures of their par­ents’ or an­ces­tors’ moth­er­land, In­di­ra Ram­garib-Kat­wa­roo is chang­ing that—one un­for­get­table tour at a time.

As a de­vot­ed wife to Ra­ju and moth­er to Nicholai and Miri­am, Ram­garib-Kat­wa­roo faced a sud­den cross­roads when her pre­vi­ous job end­ed un­ex­pect­ed­ly dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

She was un­cer­tain and wor­ried about how to sup­port her fam­i­ly, she re­called. But af­ter at­tend­ing a meet­ing about be­com­ing a trav­el agent—and with the stead­fast en­cour­age­ment of her hus­band—she took a coura­geous leap and launched her own busi­ness.

“When my pre­vi­ous job un­ex­pect­ed­ly came to an end dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, I found my­self in a chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tion, grap­pling with the need to se­cure a sta­ble in­come to sup­port my fam­i­ly.

“Ini­tial­ly un­sure of my next steps, I at­tend­ed a meet­ing about be­com­ing a trav­el agent, and with the un­wa­ver­ing sup­port and en­cour­age­ment of my hus­band, I de­cid­ed to take a leap of faith and launch my own trav­el busi­ness.

“Mag­i­cal Is­land Tours and Trav­el LLC was es­tab­lished; a de­ci­sion that changed my life for­ev­er. It wasn’t just a jour­ney about find­ing a new ca­reer; it was about dis­cov­er­ing a deep­er pur­pose.”

What start­ed as a ca­reer shift quick­ly be­came a life-chang­ing jour­ney. She was help­ing oth­ers con­nect with their roots and dis­cov­er the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of trav­el.

De­ter­mined to suc­ceed, Ram­garib-Kat­wa­roo im­mersed her­self in the ed­u­ca­tion and skills need­ed. To­day, she in­spires oth­ers with her pas­sion for trav­el as a bridge to her­itage, cul­ture, and per­son­al growth.

“It was not easy,” she re­vealed. “I was ac­tu­al­ly re­al­ly very ill; had some form of paral­y­sis on one side; was hos­pi­talised, yet I lit­er­al­ly built the busi­ness from my hos­pi­tal bed.”

She ex­plained that trav­el ex­perts play a vi­tal role in mak­ing the world bet­ter.

“Trav­el has the unique abil­i­ty to build bridges, nur­ture con­nec­tions, and spark mean­ing­ful change. I’m un­apolo­get­i­cal­ly con­fi­dent when it comes to pro­duc­tive­ly help­ing oth­ers. I’m al­so a teacher and a risk tak­er,” Ram­garib-Kat­wa­roo shared.

She has helped oth­ers em­pow­er them­selves and start their own busi­ness­es. While seek­ing ways to cre­ate em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties, she took a chance and went to Guyana—where she knew no one—and suc­cess­ful­ly start­ed a busi­ness there as well as in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“There’s noth­ing more re­ward­ing than see­ing small busi­ness own­ers suc­ceed and thrive. Sup­port­ing their jour­ney brings me im­mense joy and ful­fil­ment; It’s what I love, what I ex­cel at, and what I’m ded­i­cat­ed to do­ing every sin­gle day.”

Ram­garib-Kat­wa­roo is fi­nal­is­ing plans for an up­com­ing tour of In­dia and Sri Lan­ka. She de­scribed these as spir­i­tu­al jour­neys, not sim­ply a tour, but a home­com­ing—an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­con­nect with some­thing greater than one­self, bring­ing clar­i­ty, peace, and pur­pose.

She fur­ther ex­plained that, as the great-grand­daugh­ter of an in­den­tured labour­er, one of the most mean­ing­ful parts of her work is cu­rat­ing and lead­ing these spir­i­tu­al tours.

This work is deeply per­son­al to her, serv­ing as a way to ho­n­our her an­ces­tors’ sac­ri­fices, re­con­nect with her cul­tur­al roots, and help oth­ers on their own jour­neys of heal­ing, re­flec­tion, and spir­i­tu­al awak­en­ing.

“It’s an ho­n­our to fa­cil­i­tate that for oth­ers and to walk that sa­cred path along­side them,” she stat­ed.

Es­pe­cial­ly ex­cit­ed about this up­com­ing tour, she added, “There’s some­thing pro­found­ly mov­ing about stand­ing in the tem­ples, sa­cred rivers, and holy cities that echo with cen­turies of de­vo­tion and tra­di­tion. I feel a deep sense of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and pride in help­ing oth­ers ex­pe­ri­ence the spir­i­tu­al rich­ness of places like In­dia and Sri Lan­ka–des­ti­na­tions that con­tin­ue to trans­form lives in ways that words can bare­ly ex­press.”

She and her team have vis­it­ed Viet­nam, Mex­i­co, and Pana­ma. In April they vis­it­ed In­dia and were fea­tured in a lo­cal news­pa­per. On June 1, a team de­part­ed Trinidad for Africa. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, vis­it­ing teams or tourists to T&T are host­ed by Ram­garib-Kat­wa­roo.

With every jour­ney she leads and every sto­ry she helps un­cov­er, In­di­ra Ram­garib-Kat­wa­roo is not just con­nect­ing peo­ple to places—she’s weav­ing a pow­er­ful ta­pes­try of her­itage, heal­ing, and hope that in­spires gen­er­a­tions to em­brace their roots and step con­fi­dent­ly in­to their fu­tures.