Jesse Ramdeo

The usu­al ring­ing of the school bell did not beck­on the start of the day for a group of pupils of San Fer­nan­do Girls’ Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School yes­ter­day. In­stead, they were greet­ed by the brassy notes of trum­pets at Pres­i­dent’s House, St Ann’s.

Trad­ing cities, the girls were spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed guests of Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, who, dur­ing her in­au­gu­ra­tion speech in March, laud­ed the pupils for a spe­cial project on the role and func­tion of the Pres­i­dent they had un­der­tak­en.

In her maid­en ad­dress, the Pres­i­dent not­ed that she in­tend­ed to pro­vide clar­i­ty about the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent and make the of­fi­cial res­i­dence more ac­ces­si­ble to achieve this goal.

“I be­lieve that height­en­ing aware­ness at the pri­ma­ry school lev­el about the role of the Pres­i­dent, will help pro­mote a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of the pres­i­den­cy. I am aware of at least one pri­ma­ry school in south Trinidad, the San Fer­nan­do Girls’ Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School Stan­dard Four, which has em­barked on a project to height­en aware­ness about the role of the Pres­i­dent so long as that school’s prin­ci­pal per­mits. I should be very hap­py to meet with the stu­dents in stan­dard forc­ing to dis­cuss with them how they and their teach­ers might be able to help to lead and spread projects like this across the coun­try,” the Pres­i­dent said then.

The group of girls, ac­com­pa­nied by a teacher and oth­er of­fi­cials from the south­ern school, re­ceived a warm wel­come from Kan­ga­loo and her hus­band Ker­wyn Gar­cia, as the Pres­i­dent, still nurs­ing a leg in­jury sus­tained last month while ex­er­cis­ing, limped to­wards her seat say­ing: “Good morn­ing every­one, I’ll take a lit­tle longer to get to my chair, but I’ll get there soon.”

In a brief open­ing, Kan­ga­loo ex­pressed her de­light at be­ing able to host the pupils.

She said, “Wel­come to Pres­i­dent’s House and I thank you for com­ing to meet me this morn­ing. Since my in­au­gu­ra­tion, you all know that I spoke about you at my in­au­gu­ra­tion. And then it was my in­ten­tion to come and vis­it you at your school be­cause I want­ed to see the project you were work­ing on, so it was my in­ten­tion to vis­it you, but then this hap­pened and con­se­quent­ly it is our plea­sure to in­vite you here.”

The Pres­i­dent not­ed that the in­ter­ac­tion was not just a mon­u­men­tal one for the pupils but for her as well.

“I want to tell you that you are the first group of girls to vis­it me in Pres­i­dent’s House, so you are part of my his­to­ry to­day and I am grate­ful that you all took the time to come and see me.”