RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Stu­dents from Lochmaben Ro­man Catholic School in Ce­dros were giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty of a life­time on Mon­day, when they toured the USS Grave­ly, a vis­it­ing US Navy war­ship docked at the Port of Port-of-Spain. The high­light of the vis­it was meet­ing some of the US Marines whose col­leagues had helped to re­pair their school last Au­gust.

A to­tal of 35 stu­dents and 15 teach­ers par­tic­i­pat­ed in the vis­it. Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath said it made Lochmaben RC the on­ly school in Trinidad and To­ba­go to be grant­ed a tour of the US de­stroy­er.

The vis­it fol­lowed months af­ter the com­ple­tion of a US Em­bassy–fund­ed project that up­grad­ed the school’s class­rooms, elec­tri­cal sys­tems and san­i­ta­tion fa­cil­i­ties. Lochmaben RC is sit­u­at­ed in Fullar­ton, Ce­dros, and most of the chil­dren who at­tend­ed had nev­er vis­it­ed the cap­i­tal city.

A par­ent who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said her chil­dren were thrilled to see the war­ship up close and were es­pe­cial­ly ex­cit­ed about the he­li­copter on deck.

“I was a bit wor­ried about send­ing my chil­dren but af­ter­wards, their fa­ther said it would be a good ex­pe­ri­ence for them, and it was. They got a chance to see what a re­al war­ship looks like,” she added.

Ear­li­er this year, the US Em­bassy al­so do­nat­ed com­put­ers, a print­er and ed­u­ca­tion­al sup­plies to the rur­al school — part of ef­forts to help mod­ernise fa­cil­i­ties and en­hance dig­i­tal learn­ing at the small Ce­dros in­sti­tu­tion.

The work done at Lochmaben RC, car­ried out by US Navy Seabees un­der the US South­ern Com­mand’s hu­man­i­tar­i­an out­reach pro­gramme, was sup­port­ed by the Em­bassy’s Of­fice of Se­cu­ri­ty Co­op­er­a­tion.

For many of the stu­dents, the ex­pe­ri­ence on Mondy ex­tend­ed be­yond the ship it­self. Some of the chil­dren were amazed by the sky­line and tall build­ings as their bus made its way to the Wa­ter­front on Wright­son Road.

Al­though par­ents were not al­lowed on the field trip, one par­ent told CNC3 News they were grate­ful for the once-in-a-life­time op­por­tu­ni­ty giv­en to their chil­dren and ap­pre­cia­tive of the part­ner­ship with the US Em­bassy and mil­i­tary.

In a state­ment, US Em­bassy Chargé d’Af­faires Dr Jenifer Nei­d­hart de Or­tiz said the vis­it by Lochmaben RC re­flect­ed the grow­ing friend­ship be­tween the two coun­tries.

“The op­por­tu­ni­ty for these chil­dren and their teach­ers to get a per­son­al guid­ed tour of the USS Grave­ly ex­em­pli­fies the deep ties be­tween the Unit­ed States and Trinidad and To­ba­go. It was an ab­solute plea­sure to meet the kids and their teach­ers on board—they asked great ques­tions and their pres­ence on board was a de­light for our sailors.

“The vis­it was an­oth­er ex­am­ple of how our US mil­i­tary part­ners with Trinidad and To­ba­go mil­i­tary and civil­ian in­sti­tu­tions alike to strength­en com­mu­ni­ties and build re­silience.”

Lochmaben RC prin­ci­pal Bev­er­ley Find­ley ex­pressed her grat­i­tude for the on­go­ing sup­port from the US Em­bassy.

She said the school com­mu­ni­ty was thank­ful for the “re­mark­able ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties, vi­tal as­sis­tance, learn­ing ma­te­ri­als, equip­ment, and tech­no­log­i­cal re­sources.” She called the Grave­ly tour a “once-in-a-life­time op­por­tu­ni­ty” that broad­ened her stu­dents’ hori­zons and pro­vid­ed last­ing mem­o­ries.

The USS Grave­ly’s ar­rival fol­lows a se­ries of US South­ern Com­mand (US SOUTH­COM) en­gage­ments in T&T this year, in­clud­ing the USNS Com­fort’s med­ical and hu­man­i­tar­i­an mis­sion in Au­gust and the Tradewinds joint ex­er­cise co-host­ed with the T&T De­fence Force (TTDF) in April and May.

In a state­ment, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the vis­it of the USS Grave­ly re­flects on­go­ing co­op­er­a­tion be­tween T&T and the Unit­ed States through mil­i­tary, hu­man­i­tar­i­an, and com­mu­ni­ty ini­tia­tives de­signed to strength­en re­gion­al ties.

How­ev­er, the ship’s pres­ence here comes at a sen­si­tive time, as it has es­ca­lat­ed ten­sions be­tween the US and Venezuela, which is now al­so ac­cus­ing T&T of sup­port­ing a US plot to over­throw the Nico­las Maduro regime. That sit­u­a­tion has es­ca­lat­ed in the last 72 hours with the Maduro regime sus­pend­ing T&T’s En­er­gy Co­op­er­a­tion Frame­work Agree­ment and de­clar­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar per­sona non gra­ta to the coun­try.

While their US col­leagues host­ed stu­dents on Mon­day, mem­bers of the T&T De­fence Force car­ried out their own train­ing at the He­li­port in Ch­aguara­mas yes­ter­day.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Ch­aguara­mas to get a glimpse of the on­go­ing train­ing and found a few mem­bers of the lo­cal army on the shoot­ing range and oth­ers do­ing drills at the He­li­port.

Com­mand­ing Of­fi­cer of the USS Grave­ly, Gre­go­ry J Pi­orun Jr, al­so paid a cour­tesy vis­it to Chief of De­fence Staff of the TTDF, Cap­tain Don Po­lo, at the De­fence Force Head­quar­ters on Mon­day.
The TTDF said the men dis­cused the mil­i­tary-to-mil­i­tary bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ship be­tween the or­gan­i­sa­tions, the cur­rent train­ing ex­er­cise and plans for fu­ture col­lab­o­ra­tions for ca­pac­i­ty build­ing and ex­pert ex­changes.
Com­man­der Pi­orun Jr was ac­com­pa­nied by US Mil­i­tary Li­ai­son Of­fi­cer Cap­tain Gideon Tek­le­gior­gis and oth­er staff mem­bers from the US Em­bassy. Al­so present at the meet­ing was act­ing Com­mand­ing Of­fi­cer of the TTCG Ray Fred­er­ick.