RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

With rur­al schools fac­ing on­go­ing fur­ni­ture short­ages, San Fer­nan­do busi­ness­man Andy Bal­go­b­in has pledged $120,000 in do­na­tions to sup­ply desks and chairs to some of the coun­try’s most un­der­served rur­al schools.

He made the an­nounce­ment at the Rapid Fire Kidz Foun­da­tion an­nu­al Gala Fundrais­ing Din­ner at Achie­vors Ban­quet Hall in Dun­can Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do, on Sat­ur­day night.

Bal­go­b­in’s an­nounce­ment fol­lowed com­plaints from teach­ers and par­ents of Ma­yaro Sec­ondary School that there was no fur­ni­ture for stu­dents at the start of the term.

Pres­i­dent of the foun­da­tion Kevin Rati­ram thanked Bal­go­in, say­ing they will co­or­di­nate to en­sure the school fur­ni­ture get to the schools by go­ing through the ap­pro­pri­ate chan­nels.

Mean­while, guest speak­er Dr Jerome Teelucks­ingh, a not­ed ad­vo­cate for youth wel­fare, used the plat­form to em­pha­sise the ur­gent need to “safe­guard the fu­ture of our na­tion’s chil­dren.”

Call­ing for uni­ty in the face of what he de­scribed as so­ci­etal “mon­sters,” Dr Teelucks­ingh im­plored cit­i­zens to take ac­tion, warn­ing, “We must arm our­selves to de­stroy these ‘mon­sters’ that have erod­ed the fab­ric of our com­mu­ni­ty and so­ci­ety. And, you don’t need a firearm to de­stroy these mon­sters.”

He high­light­ed sev­en metaphor­i­cal “mon­sters,” or so­ci­etal chal­lenges, call­ing up­on every­one to con­front these forces.

Among the “mon­sters” he de­scribed, the first was a dual-head­ed men­ace—ig­no­rance and in­tol­er­ance. Teelucks­ingh called for ed­u­ca­tion as the pri­ma­ry weapon in this bat­tle, not­ing that tol­er­ance and un­der­stand­ing are es­sen­tial in schools, com­mu­ni­ties and homes.

“The ig­no­rance mon­ster has pro­mot­ed the cul­ture of bul­ly­ing and peer pres­sure that has in­vad­ed our coun­try,” he said, adding that with­out tol­er­ance, so­ci­ety will con­tin­ue to frag­ment along lines of gen­der, re­li­gion, and eth­nic­i­ty.

“Every child de­serves to be nur­tured in a peace­ful, in­clu­sive en­vi­ron­ment,” he urged.

Teelucks­ingh said the “gam­bling vam­pire” lures peo­ple with false promis­es of wealth. He lament­ed the grow­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty of gam­bling, say­ing, “This vam­pire is drain­ing the re­sources of fam­i­lies, wast­ing both time and mon­ey.”

He ex­pressed frus­tra­tion that wealthy cit­i­zens of­ten con­tribute to this cy­cle by fund­ing casi­nos and gam­ing es­tab­lish­ments, rather than in­vest­ing in health­care, so­cial sup­port, or ed­u­ca­tion.

“Imag­ine the im­pact if these do­na­tions went to com­mu­ni­ty needs in­stead,” he told the au­di­ence.

He al­so warned par­ents of the “spir­i­tu­al empti­ness” that he be­lieves re­sults from ne­glect­ing faith and eth­i­cal prin­ci­ples.

“Some of our young peo­ple are like zom­bies, mind­less­ly fol­low­ing so­ci­etal pres­sures,” he said.

He stressed the im­por­tance of in­still­ing moral guid­ance in chil­dren from an ear­ly age. He warned that an ob­ses­sion with wealth leads to self­ish­ness, urg­ing at­ten­dees to em­brace char­i­ty and em­pa­thy in­stead.

“Ma­te­r­i­al things can fill pock­ets, but char­i­ty and love fill the heart,” he said, quot­ing Moth­er Tere­sa and Gand­hi to il­lus­trate his point.

“Our great­est wealth is mea­sured not in dol­lars but in the kind­ness we ex­tend to oth­ers,” he added.

Teelucks­ingh al­so spoke about the “blood­thirsty drag­on” of vi­o­lence and the alarm­ing rate of child abuse and mur­der.

“Every day, in­no­cent lives are lost and the na­tion watch­es,” Teelucks­ingh said as he im­plored cit­i­zens to take ac­tion.

Re­flect­ing on colo­nial his­to­ry, he spoke of “ghosts of colo­nial­ism” that con­tin­ue to in­flu­ence at­ti­tudes and be­hav­iours in mod­ern T&T.

Rather than eras­ing the past, he ad­vised, “We must learn from it, ho­n­our it, and move for­ward with pride in our cul­ture.”

Teelucks­ingh com­mend­ed the foun­da­tion for its work and called for con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion among NGOs, com­mu­ni­ty groups, and cit­i­zens.