KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Past and present stu­dents of St Au­gus­tine Girls’ High School (SAGHS) turned out in their num­bers to ho­n­our pi­o­neer­ing prin­ci­pal and moth­er fig­ure Dr An­na Ma­hase at her fu­ner­al yes­ter­day.

Al­though she did not have any bi­o­log­i­cal chil­dren, Dr Ma­hase was re­gard­ed as the ul­ti­mate moth­er fig­ure by many cit­i­zens. She died last Fri­day at age 91.

Dur­ing her fu­ner­al at the Ara­malaya Pres­by­ter­ian Church in Tu­na­puna, sev­er­al of the mourn­ers laud­ed her ac­com­plish­ments as an ed­u­ca­tor, trail­blaz­er and vi­sion­ary.

In a trib­ute dur­ing the ser­vice, Jus­tice Al­ice Yorke-Soo Hon said, “Nur­tur­ing, guid­ing, lov­ing, car­ing, in­spir­ing. She looked af­ter us and she looked out for us.”

Al­so ad­dress­ing the con­gre­ga­tion was for­mer na­tion­al hock­ey play­er Jo­ce­lyn Fran­cois, who said, “That vi­sion­ary woman took us star­ry-eyed, awk­ward young girls and us­ing her re­sources, her con­nec­tions and in­flu­en­tial net­work, cre­at­ed an en­vi­ron­ment con­ducive to learn­ing. Valu­able lessons of racial and re­li­gious tol­er­ance were taught as we cel­e­brat­ed each oth­er’s dif­fer­ences. Dr Ma­hase was the orig­i­nal in­flu­encer.”

Not on­ly was Dr Ma­hase praised for her im­pact on the thou­sands of SAGHS stu­dents, but she was al­so re­mem­bered for how much she gave back to the na­tion.

For­mer Port-of-Spain May­or Joel Mar­tinez, who spoke to Guardian Me­dia af­ter the fu­ner­al ser­vice, said, “She gave so much to the lives of Trinidad and To­ba­go. You could have learnt so much from her. She was al­ways one who would teach be­cause she was a true teacher. She was al­ways giv­ing of her­self and up­lift­ing you at the same time so you nev­er left as if you were scold­ed.”

Echo­ing sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments was MIC In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy chair­man Pro­fes­sor Clement Im­bert. He said Ma­hase was “one of the most moral­ly up­stand­ing per­sons you could find in Trinidad and To­ba­go. I can’t think of a woman greater than An­na Ma­hase in Trinidad and To­ba­go”.

Clement’s wife, Sharon, an­oth­er for­mer SAGHS stu­dent, de­scribed Ma­hase as an amaz­ing woman.

Her fam­i­ly and loved ones present said Dr Ma­hase’s lega­cy was one of love, wis­dom, com­pas­sion and ex­cel­lence in ed­u­ca­tion.

Ma­hase was the youngest woman to be ap­point­ed a prin­ci­pal in T&T when she took the helm at SAGHS at age 28. She was the re­cip­i­ent of sev­er­al na­tion­al awards, in­clud­ing the Medal of Mer­it (Gold) in 1976 and the Cha­co­nia Medal in 1990. She was one of 50 peo­ple ho­n­oured with the Ex­cel­lence in Ed­u­ca­tion and Dis­tin­guished Pub­lic Ser­vice award on the 50th an­niver­sary of T&T’s in­de­pen­dence.

Fol­low­ing her re­tire­ment, Dr Ma­hase con­tin­ued to serve in var­i­ous ca­pac­i­ties, in­clud­ing as pres­i­dent of the T&T Red Cross So­ci­ety, a mem­ber of the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (TSC), the Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil (CXC) mem­ber and as a tem­po­rary gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor.

Al­so in at­ten­dance was Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo.