RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Re­call­ing her child­hood trau­ma of be­ing bul­lied for be­ing over­weight in school, for­mer jour­nal­ist and Head of Mar­ket­ing at the Unit Trust Cor­po­ra­tion Hema Ramkissoon has urged stu­dents to be kind to each oth­er and to seek help if they are be­ing bul­lied.

Speak­ing at the Har­mo­ny Hall Pres­by­ter­ian School grad­u­a­tion held at the Wil­son Memo­r­i­al Pres­by­ter­ian Church in Mara­bel­la, yes­ter­day, Ramkissoon took the chil­dren down mem­o­ry lane to a time when she felt in­signif­i­cant and un­hap­py with her size.

“When I was your age—in pri­ma­ry school—I was a lit­tle heav­ier than the oth­er girls. And peo­ple no­ticed. They laughed. They whis­pered. They called me names that still echo some­times,” she said. “They made me feel like my body didn’t fit in­to the world around me. And what hurt most? I be­lieved them.”

Ramkissoon said the ex­pe­ri­ence of bul­ly­ing made her shrink on the in­side. “I made my­self small­er so oth­ers would feel more com­fort­able,” she said, ex­plain­ing that she would stay qui­et even when she had some­thing to say.

“Bul­ly­ing doesn’t just bruise your heart—it con­vinces you to dim your own light. And no child—none of you—de­serves that,” she said.

She told the pupils that bul­ly­ing is not a joke, not a phase, and is not ac­cept­able. “Whether it hap­pens in school, on­line, or even in fam­i­lies—it’s some­thing that we all need to call out and shut down,” she said.

To those who bul­ly, she said, “There is some­thing pow­er­ful in­side you. Use it for good. Lift peo­ple up in­stead of pulling them down. Be­cause bul­ly­ing doesn’t make you strong—it makes you for­get who you tru­ly are.”

Re­flect­ing on her own jour­ney, Ramkissoon re­mind­ed the chil­dren that the girl who was once bul­lied now leads the mar­ket­ing team at a ma­jor fi­nan­cial com­pa­ny. “I didn’t get here be­cause I was the smartest or the pret­ti­est. I got here be­cause I didn’t let any­one else write my sto­ry for me. And nei­ther should you.”

She en­cour­aged the chil­dren to speak up, even when it is hard. “Your voice is your su­per­pow­er. Even if it quiv­ers. Even if it’s qui­et. Even if some­one once told you to be qui­et.”

She urged them to be kind, stay cu­ri­ous, learn from mis­takes, re­mem­ber their roots, and use their voice for good.

Mean­while, vale­dic­to­ri­ans Rael Jack and Kaylee Be­har­ry re­flect­ed on the time they spent at the school and the fun they had with their friends and teach­ers.

Jack said their teach­ers gave them mo­ti­va­tion and en­cour­age­ment as they did prac­tice tests in prepa­ra­tion for the SEA ex­ams.

She said the school was al­ways a place of love. Be­har­ry al­so laud­ed their teach­ers and their prin­ci­pal, Michelle Do­man-Ramkissoon, for help­ing them over the years and for al­ways push­ing them to achieve their high­est po­ten­tial.