Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

The new­ly ap­point­ed In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors have sig­nalled their in­ten­tions to bring fresh ideas and pri­ori­tise the needs of the pop­u­la­tion, free from par­ti­san pres­sures.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Tues­day, Mul­ti­me­dia Jour­nal­ist and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Con­sul­tant Suni­ty Ma­haraj said she in­tend­ed to use her po­si­tion to ad­vo­cate for trans­for­ma­tive poli­cies re­lat­ing to mat­ters of crime, the econ­o­my and the cli­mate.

“Def­i­nite­ly break­ing the cy­cle of vi­o­lence be­cause it gets deep­er, like if you get stuck in the mud and the more you try to spin the wheel and deep­er it goes. It re­quires us to reach be­yond the ob­vi­ous cul­prits to the con­di­tions and sys­temic el­e­ments that cre­ate a fer­tile en­vi­ron­ment for deep­en­ing a cul­ture of vi­o­lence,” she said.

Ma­haraj fur­ther recog­nised the need to de­vel­op sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic mea­sures which shift­ed away from state de­pen­den­cy and non-re­new­able re­sources. She al­so ac­knowl­edged that cli­mate change must be fac­tored through the dis­course giv­en its grow­ing im­pact. “Cli­mate change is big on my agen­da, the con­ver­sa­tion can­not stop sim­ply where our car­bon emis­sions are and what is the sta­tus of that. We live un­der one sky, the oceans are con­nect­ed, what hap­pens to Alas­ka has tremen­dous im­pact on our is­land and our liveli­hoods. The chang­ing tem­per­a­tures and its im­pact on agri­cul­ture must al­so be con­sid­ered,” she said.

Ma­haraj al­so ex­pressed op­ti­mism about the par­lia­men­tar­i­ans’ abil­i­ty to come to­geth­er to achieve goals crit­i­cal for the fu­ture of the coun­try.

“There is a gen­er­al lack of trust, in schools, in homes, par­ents are fight­ing for au­thor­i­ty. You can’t tell chil­dren, much less adults do so be­cause I say so. They will look at you and judge you and say ‘ok, I can buy that, I can trust what you’re say­ing’. So we do have to hold our­selves to a high­er stan­dard,” Ma­haraj added.

Dr Shar­da Patasar, who was sworn in as an In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor on Mon­day, told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that her back­ground in cul­ture and the arts will serve to guide her con­tri­bu­tions in the new leg­isla­tive term.

“I hope with my ap­point­ment I can ob­jec­tive­ly de­bate, bring­ing that ex­pe­ri­ence in the clas­si­cal as well as aca­d­e­m­ic ex­pe­ri­ence to the floor,” she said.

Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try Ger­ard Hutchin­son, who will al­so be one of the new faces on the In­de­pen­dent bench, said that high­light­ing men­tal health is­sues as well as bring­ing an in­sight­ful and in­de­pen­dent per­spec­tive on the mat­ters be­ing dis­cussed were his ar­eas of fo­cus.

“I feel men­tal health as an en­ti­ty and not just re­lat­ed to men­tal ill­ness but the whole need to ap­pre­ci­ate how im­por­tant the men­tal as­pect of our lives is in the con­text of every­thing we do,” Hutchin­son ex­plained.

Fol­low­ing Mon­day’s cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of the Par­lia­ment, 29-year-old for­mer ca­lyp­so monarch Helon Fran­cis told Guardian Me­dia that as a new In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor, he is set on rep­re­sent­ing the youth and ad­vo­cat­ing for cul­ture.