Za­kiya Naila Uzoma-Wada­da whose birth name is re­al­ly Wendy Man­ners, child of Clyde and Agnes Man­ners at­tend­ed Bel­mont Girls’ RC.School af­ter which she at­tend­ed St Joseph’s Con­vent, Port-of Spain for sev­en years. There, she com­plet­ed her GCE Or­di­nary Lev­el and GCE Ad­vanced Lev­el Ex­am­i­na­tions. Za­kiya as she is known to­day, changed her name by Deed Poll in 1975. when she be­gan to un­der­stand the im­por­tance of the mean­ing and en­er­gy of a name and the sig­nif­i­cance to iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of one’s eth­nic­i­ty.

She al­ways want­ed a ca­reer in teach­ing and at the age of 18 af­ter leav­ing high school, was ap­point­ed a teacher at Bel­mont Girls’ RC School fol­lowed by St Rose’s Girls’ In­ter­me­di­ate School. At the age of 19 she was mar­ried and had her first son four months af­ter her 20th birth­day. Za­kiya went on to learn to play the steel­pan with Trinidad All Stars Steel Or­ches­tra in 1974 and even­tu­al­ly was elect­ed to the Band’s Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee in the po­si­tion as Sec­re­tary. It was in the ear­ly eight­ies that she stopped teach­ing and opt­ed to open a Health Food Store on Hen­ry Street. The ven­ture she con­tin­ued while al­so liv­ing in An­tigua for a few years and teach­ing at a pri­vate school there. Her re­turn to the shores of Trinidad and To­ba­go in 1987, by which time she had three chil­dren, was the point where she be­gan a fab­ric de­sign busi­ness to pro­vide top de­sign­ers and fab­ric stores hand-dyed fab­ric. Af­ter sev­en years in the busi­ness she worked as the prin­ci­pal of Abi­adama, a pri­vate pri­ma­ry/sec­ondary school, and then as Pro­gramme Di­rec­tor of the Caribbean Net­work for Rur­al De­vel­op­ment.

To­day, Za­kiya is now the moth­er of five chil­dren, grand­moth­er of six grand­daugh­ters, Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee of Trinidad and To­ba­go and Chair­per­son of the Caribbean Nat­ur­al Re­sources In­sti­tute who al­so pos­sess­es a Mas­ters of Arts De­gree in Agri­cul­ture and Rur­al De­vel­op­ment. Za­kiya is a woman of in­domitable spir­it, who leaves her mark in the many ar­eas that she touch­es. Now hold­ing such an es­teemed po­si­tion for the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee and with the com­ing of the Eman­ci­pa­tion Day pa­rade, we sought to find out more about her. Here’s what she shared with the WE Mag team in an in­ter­view:

What was the biggest chal­lenge you had to over­come pro­fes­sion­al­ly?

Or­gan­is­ing the an­nu­al Na­tion­al Pan African Fes­ti­val Com­mem­o­rat­ing Eman­ci­pa­tion an­nu­al­ly with very lim­it­ed re­sources. This mul­ti­fac­eted fes­ti­val, which in­cor­po­rates busi­ness, ed­u­ca­tion­al, cul­tur­al and youth ac­tiv­i­ties has so much po­ten­tial to pos­i­tive­ly im­pact the lives of our peo­ple but it needs greater sup­port from the gov­ern­ment, pri­vate sec­tor and the na­tion­al pop­u­la­tion.

What does Eman­ci­pa­tion mean to you?

To me, Eman­ci­pa­tion rep­re­sents the end of the en­slave­ment of the minds, bod­ies and spir­its of African peo­ple and there­fore the op­por­tu­ni­ty for us to get to know, un­der­stand and re­claim our his­to­ry, cul­ture, spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and world­view.

What is one thing you think all cit­i­zens of Trinidad & To­ba­go should take away from the recog­ni­tion of Eman­ci­pa­tion Day?

Ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the rich­ness, beau­ty, pow­er and re­gal­i­ty of the na­tion’s African her­itage, in­creased knowl­edge and un­der­stand­ing of Africa, a con­ti­nent of Em­pires and com­mu­ni­ties with sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ments in Sci­ence, Ar­chi­tec­ture, Lit­er­a­ture and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty be­fore en­slave­ment. Achieve­ments which have in­flu­enced every area of mod­ern civ­i­liza­tion.

What are you most grate­ful for?

I am most grate­ful for life, health, my chil­dren and grand­chil­dren and the op­por­tu­ni­ty my job pro­vides for me to serve oth­ers along with a ded­i­cat­ed team of young peo­ple and el­ders.

What is some­thing you know for sure that you wish the rest of us knew?

The im­por­tance of know­ing and un­der­stand­ing man’s con­nec­tion and re­la­tion­ship with the uni­verse, na­ture and how that de­ter­mines and im­pacts be­hav­iour.