Four new In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors will take their oaths of of­fice in Par­lia­ment lat­er to­day.  The in­com­ing group in­cludes a for­mer Ca­lyp­so Monarch, a vet­er­an jour­nal­ist, a renowned psy­chi­a­trist, and a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary artist, the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent has con­firmed.

The out­go­ing In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors are Ms Am­ri­ta De­onar­ine, Dr. Var­ma Deyals­ingh, Ms Char­rise Seep­er­sad and Mr. Evans Welch.

The new In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors are:

●   Pro­fes­sor Ger­ard A. Hutchin­son, Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try and Unit Lead in the Psy­chi­a­try Unit of the Fac­ul­ty of Med­ical Sci­ences at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St. Au­gus­tine and the Head of the De­part­ment of Men­tal Health in the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty. Pro­fes­sor Hutchin­son has post­grad­u­ate qual­i­fi­ca­tions in Epi­demi­ol­o­gy and Pop­u­la­tion Health (2001), Psy­chi­atric Epi­demi­ol­o­gy (2002) and Psy­chi­a­try (2004) at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don.

●   Ms Suni­ty Ma­haraj, a ca­reer jour­nal­ist and mul­ti­me­dia pro­fes­sion­al who has worked in print and broad­cast me­dia for over 45 years.  Ms Ma­haraj has head­ed jour­nal­ist or­gan­i­sa­tions in­clud­ing the Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Com­mon­wealth Jour­nal­ists As­so­ci­a­tion and de­vel­oped and im­ple­ment­ed train­ing pro­grammes for jour­nal­ists. She cur­rent­ly runs her own mul­ti-me­dia pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny and works as an in­de­pen­dent Me­dia and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions con­sul­tant.

●   Dr. Shar­da Patasar, a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary artist with a strong back­ground in teach­ing, re­search and writ­ing, and mu­sic com­po­si­tion, has a Ph.D. in Cul­tur­al Stud­ies from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies. Apart from her aca­d­e­m­ic and teach­ing work, Dr. Patasar has writ­ten ex­ten­sive­ly on cul­ture in Trinidad for pub­li­ca­tions in the Caribbean, Eu­rope, In­dia and South Africa. Dr. Patasar is al­so known for her per­for­mances of her orig­i­nal com­po­si­tions.

●   Mr. Helon Fran­cis, Ca­lyp­so Monarch 2018, Young King and Song of the Year win­ner 2016.  In ad­di­tion to his singing ca­reer, Mr. Fran­cis de­votes his time to de­vel­op­ing the skills and tal­ents of artis­tic ex­pres­sion in young peo­ple and in­struct­ing stu­dents in phys­i­cal fit­ness, sports, nu­tri­tion and the dan­gers of sub­stance abuse.  Mr. Fran­cis, who is not yet 30 years old, will be the youngest In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor in the cur­rent Par­lia­ment.