KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Home­own­er­ship might be an elu­sive dream for many adults, but it could be achiev­able for many chil­dren in the fu­ture if they adopt the right mind­set at school.


Ramkaran Con­tract­ing Ser­vices Ltd (RC­SL) man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Pa­tries Ramkaran says her com­pa­ny be­gan ed­u­cat­ing peo­ple about the home­own­er­ship process in 2019 and re­alised many did not have the means to do so be­cause they lacked ed­u­ca­tion. This was why RC­SL’s trade­mark, The Dream Home Am­bas­sador (TD­HA), launched its Home for Me-Suc­cess Mind­set se­ries at the San Fer­nan­do East Sec­ondary School for World Habi­tat Day (WHD) on Mon­day.

The theme of this year’s WHD is “Mind the Gap. Leave No One and Place Be­hind,” which looks at the prob­lem of grow­ing in­equal­i­ty and chal­lenges in cities and hu­man set­tle­ments.


“The re­al­i­ty is home­own­er­ship is a chal­lenge in this coun­try. There are fac­tors such as the cost of re­al es­tate. There is the oth­er fac­tor of em­ploy­ment chal­lenges as peo­ple work on con­tract. They are un­able to at­tain a mort­gage. How­ev­er, hav­ing the right ed­u­ca­tion and po­si­tion­ing your­self at a young age sets them (chil­dren) for suc­cess in the fu­ture,” Ramkaran said.


While some adults will be able to se­cure a home, she said the re­al­i­ty is that not every­body can.

The Home for Me-Sucess Mind­set se­ries tar­gets Form Four stu­dents, as they have re­cent­ly picked their sub­jects for the Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC) ex­am­i­na­tion, which could help de­ter­mine their ca­reer paths. 


Ramkaran said part of the WHD theme aligns with the mis­sion of the TD­HA, which is to ed­u­cate stu­dents and adults by pro­vid­ing the tools to help them achieve their home­own­er­ship goals so no one is left be­hind.
 She told stu­dents: “Peo­ple are left be­hind when there are no choic­es and op­por­tu­ni­ties. You have an op­por­tu­ni­ty of free ed­u­ca­tion in this coun­try, which will po­si­tion you for a suc­cess­ful fu­ture. But you need to have a pos­i­tive at­ti­tude and get the work done.”

The event in­clud­ed an in­ter­ac­tive ses­sion by Dra­ma Mak­ing a Dif­fer­ence Com­pa­ny, a non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion that pro­motes so­cial change through the arts. It ques­tioned stu­dents about their fu­ture wants and needs and chal­lenged their ef­forts to ac­com­plish those goals.

The ses­sion al­so en­cour­aged stu­dents to ex­plore is­sues such as bul­ly­ing and vi­o­lence.

The stu­dents al­so learned about the im­por­tance of fi­nan­cial man­age­ment from Ronald Corke, a sales su­per­vi­sor at East­ern Cred­it Union. Corke stressed the im­por­tance of start­ing a sav­ings plan from a young age.
 The TD­HA re­ceived ap­proval from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to car­ry out the se­ries in sec­ondary schools. Ramkaran said they plan to con­tin­ue the se­ries un­til 2026 and will tar­get four schools in 2023.