RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Na­tion­al award win­ner Romeo Gun­ness is far from your or­di­nary school prin­ci­pal. When he’s not , he’s tend­ing to his cows or work­ing in his back­yard gar­den.

Draw­ing from his agri­cul­tur­al roots, he us­es these hands-on ex­pe­ri­ences to in­stil the val­ues of hard work, em­pa­thy, and sac­ri­fice in his stu­dents at Debe Sec­ondary School.

These val­ues have now earned Gun­ness the Hum­ming­bird Medal Sil­ver for his con­tri­bu­tion to ed­u­ca­tion. In an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian, Gun­ness de­scribed the award as the pin­na­cle of his ca­reer.

“I did not ex­pect this award. It came as a shock to me, but I felt very ho­n­oured and hum­bled by it,” he said, sit­ting in his of­fice sur­round­ed by tro­phies.

Gun­ness ex­plained that his fa­ther, Har­ry Ram­lochan Gun­ness, was a ma­jor in­flu­ence in his life, in­still­ing hu­mil­i­ty, em­pa­thy, and a deep sense of hard work in him and his six sib­lings. “My fa­ther was the sole bread­win­ner, and he al­ways taught us that what­ev­er we are do­ing, we should do it to the best of our abil­i­ty,” he said.

De­spite the de­mands of his role, Gun­ness still finds time to care for his el­der­ly moth­er, Bue­lah Gun­ness, tend to his cows and chick­ens, and make per­son­al con­nec­tions with those around him, all while main­tain­ing strong spir­i­tu­al­i­ty.

“My day starts at 4 am with de­vo­tion,” he shared. “I have my el­der­ly moth­er to care for. I make break­fast and en­sure she’s okay be­fore my wife and I leave for work, and then I see about the cows and chick­ens. I get to work half an hour be­fore school starts. I speak to the kids, lead the morn­ing as­sem­bly, and at the end of the day, I un­wind a bit, make time to call a friend or check on rel­a­tives.”

Gun­ness said he grew up in agri­cul­ture, plant­i­ng gar­dens and rear­ing cows.

“I know the rice lands very well, and those ex­pe­ri­ences taught me the im­por­tance of hard work and em­pa­thy,” he ex­plained. Apart from win­ning his award, Gun­ness said one of his proud­est mo­ments was when his vi­su­al­ly im­paired stu­dent, Ryan Kham­ram, at­tained a full eight-sub­ject cer­tifi­cate.

“That was a proud mo­ment—see­ing him and oth­ers ac­cess op­por­tu­ni­ties af­ter sec­ondary school,” he said.

Gun­ness not­ed that stu­dents face more chal­lenges now than ever be­fore.

“The grow­ing in­sta­bil­i­ty in fam­i­lies di­rect­ly im­pacts chil­dren. Fam­i­lies are be­com­ing dys­func­tion­al and un­sta­ble, and chil­dren are suf­fer­ing. We have to bring sta­bil­i­ty, give them guid­ance, and help them nav­i­gate through dif­fi­cul­ties and chal­lenges,” he said.

Em­pha­sis­ing the cru­cial role par­ents must play in their chil­dren’s de­vel­op­ment, Gun­ness of­fered words of ad­vice.

“You must pri­ori­tise spend­ing time with your chil­dren. You have to know what’s hap­pen­ing, and from an ear­ly age, in­stil the val­ues you want to see—hon­esty. In­sist on it, and it will hap­pen,” he ex­plained.

He not­ed that fam­i­ly time doesn’t just mean sit­ting down for a meal.

“It means go­ing out to­geth­er, show­ing re­spect to grand­par­ents, and giv­ing chil­dren re­spon­si­bil­i­ties that help build char­ac­ter.”

While teach­ing at Bar­rack­pore Sec­ondary Com­pre­hen­sive School, Gun­ness of­ten sought out re­bel­lious stu­dents and made it his du­ty to give them re­for­ma­tive guid­ance.

“Par­ents to­day are very lib­er­al in what they give to their chil­dren. In my time, you had to earn it. Chil­dren need to learn sac­ri­fice, and that’s how they’ll learn ap­pre­ci­a­tion. They al­so need con­flict res­o­lu­tion skills so they can learn to di­a­logue and dis­cuss. Yes, chil­dren will have tantrums, but you can­not al­low cer­tain be­hav­iours,” he said.

Every morn­ing dur­ing as­sem­bly at Debe Sec­ondary, Gun­ness re­minds his stu­dents of the road to suc­cess.

“I teach them the im­por­tance of hav­ing a plan, be­ing goal-ori­ent­ed, and main­tain­ing di­rec­tion in life. Chil­dren are 16 or 17 and still don’t know what they want to do. It’s not too late for them to change, but they must al­ways have a goal in mind. Have a plan in life, and you’ll be­come a much bet­ter per­son,” he added.

For the hun­dreds of stu­dents who have suc­ceed­ed un­der Gun­ness’ guid­ance, his pres­ence has been trans­for­ma­tive.

Sum­mer Lash­ley, who at­tends Debe Sec­ondary School, said Gun­ness knows the names of all the stu­dents.

“We are not just names on a reg­is­ter—he knows all of us and even knows where we live. He en­sures that no one is left be­hind, es­pe­cial­ly those from dys­func­tion­al back­grounds,” she re­vealed.

Lash­ley al­so not­ed that the en­tire school had cel­e­brat­ed Gun­ness’s achieve­ment.

“We were all ap­pre­cia­tive of his sup­port,” she said.

Mean­while, the vice prin­ci­pal of Debe Sec­ondary, Raf­fie Mo­hammed, said the na­tion­al award was fit­ting for his col­league.

“I was ex­cit­ed, thrilled to know Mr. Gun­ness had achieved such an ho­n­our. He came from hum­ble be­gin­nings, but in spite of every­thing, he main­tains hu­mil­i­ty. He is kind, hon­est, and de­cent—qual­i­ties es­sen­tial in be­com­ing a suc­cess­ful leader,” Mo­hammed said.

He added that Gun­ness’ per­son­al ap­proach to lead­er­ship is what sets him apart.

Of­fice as­sis­tant Wahi­da Mo­hammed said the pride they all felt when Gun­ness re­ceived his na­tion­al award was over­whelm­ing.

“Every­body was ex­cit­ed, hap­py, and proud. We had a grand as­sem­bly for him. He taught us all so many lessons; for me, he al­ways taught us how to be kind and hum­ble.”

His col­league Tara Ram­jass said Gun­ness was an in­spi­ra­tion to the chil­dren and a great leader.

“He is the first prin­ci­pal I know who knows every­one by name. That is very rare to find.”

As he con­tin­ues to mould fu­ture gen­er­a­tions, Gun­ness re­mains true to his prin­ci­ples of hard work, hu­mil­i­ty, and em­pa­thy.