The Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment cel­e­brat­ed the birth­day of cen­te­nar­i­ans Pe­ter Delysia and Ms. Elar­ia Thel­ma Bel­con. They were both pre­sent­ed with Cer­tifi­cates of Ho­n­our and Achieve­ment from the Min­istry. Mr Delysia at­trib­uted his longevi­ty to eat­ing ground pro­vi­sions such as dasheen, salt fish, and smoked her­ring while Ms. Bel­con eats every­thing and she “es­pe­cial­ly loves wild meat.”

The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from the Min­istry:

For many of the cen­te­nar­i­ans cel­e­brat­ed, the se­cret to longevi­ty is nat­ur­al, home-grown foods. The same can be said for Vin­cent­ian-born Pe­ter Delysia who at­trib­uted his longevi­ty to eat­ing ground pro­vi­sions such as dasheen, salt fish, and smoked her­ring.

On the oth­er hand, new cen­te­nar­i­an Ms. Elar­ia Thel­ma Bel­con eats every­thing and she “es­pe­cial­ly loves wild meat.” Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices vis­it­ed both cen­te­nar­i­ans on the days of their birth­days to recog­nise them un­der the Min­istry’s Na­tion­al Cen­te­nar­i­an Pro­gramme.

Mr. Delysia was born on Oc­to­ber 30, 1920, and cel­e­brat­ed his 102nd birth­day at his Point Fortin home. Mr. Delysia fond­ly called “Boyie” mi­grat­ed to Trinidad where he worked at Petrotrin in the Spray­ing De­part­ment. He re­called his favourite mem­o­ry as the day he met his wife, Pa­tri­cia An­drews.

To­geth­er they have eight chil­dren, twen­ty-four grand­chil­dren, and twen­ty-sev­en great-grand­chil­dren. Mr. Delysia in­di­cat­ed that she passed away ap­prox­i­mate­ly twelve years ago.

Cel­e­brat­ing her birth­day a few days lat­er was Ms. Elar­ia Thel­ma Bel­con who marked her 100th birth­day on No­vem­ber 1, 2022. The cel­e­bra­tion was held at Bel­con's Nurs­ing Home in Ari­ma. Ms. Bel­con al­so known as “Ma­ma” is one of the First Peo­ples (Carib) and paid homage to her her­itage by don­ning a tra­di­tion­al first peo­ple’s shawl. She is al­so flu­ent in the Pa­tois lan­guage.

Ms. Bel­con grew up in Tamana and was a ded­i­cat­ed house­wife be­fore work­ing at the Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion from age forty un­til re­tire­ment. Rel­a­tives of the moth­er of ten, grand­moth­er of twen­ty-six, great-grand­moth­er of twen­ty, and great-great-grand­moth­er of two in­di­cat­ed that her “rough’ up­bring­ing and her abil­i­ty to raise ten chil­dren dur­ing sim­pler times is a tes­ta­ment to her strength and at­trib­uted to her longevi­ty.

Both Mr. Delysia and Ms. Bel­con were pre­sent­ed with Cer­tifi­cates of Ho­n­our and Achieve­ment, ham­pers cour­tesy of the Na­tion­al Agri­cul­tur­al Mar­ket­ing and De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (NAMDE­V­CO), and cakes from the Kiss Bak­ing Com­pa­ny.