RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

It was a tough sev­en-year jour­ney for pupils Sidara Akalloo, who is ail­ing from can­cer, and Sarah Ho­sein, who suf­fers from se­vere sco­l­io­sis.

But both pupils emerged as vale­dic­to­ri­ans as they grad­u­at­ed from the Grant Memo­r­i­al Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School in San Fer­nan­do, on Thurs­day.

Both said de­spite their ill­ness, the love they re­ceived at the school was tremen­dous and helped them to cope with the pain.

Sidara had de­vot­ed her life to in­spir­ing her friends at the can­cer ward of the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope to fol­low their dreams. While some of them could not write their ex­ams or go to school, Sidara stud­ied for SEA de­spite the com­pli­ca­tions of chemother­a­py. She said study­ing for SEA gave her the fo­cus and de­ter­mi­na­tion to beat her ill­ness. 

“I re­mem­ber telling my­self that this is a new ad­ven­ture, but it has been an ag­gres­sive one with long dif­fi­cult treat­ments and blood be­ing tak­en from me, six times a day. Some­times, I would be awak­ened at all hours of the night for treat­ment and med­ica­tion and still have to get up at five am for more tests and then get ready for class,” she re­called yes­ter­day.

“My friends, class­mates, my teacher, Miss Tri­cia Mar­jads­ingh, all oth­er teach­ers and well-wish­ers, and our dear prin­ci­pal Miss Don­na, who I dubbed my fairy God­moth­er be­cause she would some­times video call me just to en­sure I was do­ing well. Words can­not ex­press how I felt the day I wrote the SEA ex­am and my Grant school fam­i­ly gave me a wel­come fit for a queen,” Sidara said as the au­di­ence cheered.

Mean­while, Sarah, who is the sis­ter of CNC3’s weath­er an­chor Kalain Ho­sein, said her sco­l­io­sis nev­er kept her from work­ing to­wards her goals.

“I was di­ag­nosed in Oc­to­ber 2020 with a life-threat­en­ing con­di­tion re­quir­ing ur­gent surgery. How­ev­er, life-threat­en­ing as it was, I nev­er once al­lowed it to threat­en me. The out­pour­ing of love and sup­port I re­ceived from you, my Grant School fam­i­ly, was tremen­dous. It has fu­elled my re­cov­ery and 22 ti­ta­ni­um pins lat­er, it has giv­en me all the strength I need, to be stand­ing be­fore you to­day,” Ho­sein said to loud ap­plause.

“I can’t ex­press how ex­treme­ly grate­ful I am and my fam­i­ly and I whole­heart­ed­ly thank you,” she added. 

She added: “While there will be ob­sta­cles, it is our hu­man ge­net­ic to nev­er give up. We have al­ready shown that we are strong and we will suc­ceed against all odds.”

School prin­ci­pal Don­na Ramjohn-Khan com­mend­ed all the grad­u­ates for their hard work.

“You have proven that you can beat the odds and de­spite the ad­ver­si­ty, you can tri­umph. To­day Sarah Ho­sein and Sidara Akalloo are shin­ing ex­am­ples of achiev­ing suc­cess against all odds,” Ramjohn-Khan said.

She said both girls were per­sis­tent de­spite their chal­lenges.