Some 25 po­lice of­fi­cers are ex­pect­ed to bridge the gap and strength­en the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the lo­cal Chi­nese com­mu­ni­ty and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), in a year-long cul­tur­al and lan­guage ex­change pro­gramme.

The ini­tia­tive, which is the first of its kind in the Caribbean, was launched last Fri­day at Fui Toong On As­so­ci­a­tion, Char­lotte Street, Port-of-Spain.

It will in­clude in-per­son ses­sions fa­cil­i­tat­ed and re­sourced by the Chi­nese As­so­ci­a­tion. It will cov­er speak­ing and cul­tur­al as­pects and will en­gage front­line and spe­cialised po­lice of­fi­cers through­out sev­er­al units of the TTPS.

The pro­gramme was ini­ti­at­ed fol­low­ing meet­ings be­tween the

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, the Provost of the Acad­e­my, Dr Si­mon Alex­is and a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the Em­bassy of the Peo­ple’s Re­pub­lic of Chi­na, At­taché, Liu Wei, in May and Ju­ly 2023.

His Ex­cel­len­cy Fang Qiu, Am­bas­sador Ex­tra­or­di­nary and Plenipo­ten­tiary of the Peo­ple's Re­pub­lic of Chi­na, laud­ed the TTPS’ Lead­er­ship for its vi­sion and com­mit­ment to strength­en­ing the al­ready es­tab­lished “friend­ship” of both na­tions.

Am­bas­sador Qiu said, “The fact that our Lan­guage Class is the first of its kind in the Caribbean, is a great sym­bol of the in­clu­sive­ness, di­ver­si­ty of the so­ci­ety and the cul­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go and a tes­ta­ment to our strong friend­ship.”

The Am­bas­sador un­der­scored, “The friend­ship has a long his­to­ry, dat­ing back 200 years ago when the first batch of Chi­nese ar­rived on the is­land and half a cen­tu­ry ago when both coun­tries es­tab­lished diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions.”

He said this would go a long way in help­ing the Chi­nese feel val­ued and safe know­ing that they would be bet­ter un­der­stood by law en­force­ment. Mean­while, Com­mis­sion­er Hare­wood-Christo­pher, said the TTPS is trans­form­ing the way in which it in­ter­acts and works with all stake­hold­ers to im­prove qual­i­ty of life.

CoP Hare­wood-Christo­pher said, “Far too long, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the law en­force­ment en­vi­ron­ment, there are many among us that feel that they do not have a safe place to ex­press them­selves, in­ter­act, and more im­por­tant­ly, share ac­tion­able in­for­ma­tion, with those en­trust­ed to pro­tect and serve them.”

She added, “It is there­fore in­cum­bent on any leader, any or­gan­i­sa­tion, any right-think­ing per­son to en­sure that every­one can have an av­enue to be heard and helped.

She told the par­tic­i­pants, “You are the pi­o­neers that strength­en re­la­tions be­tween the TTPS and the mem­bers of the Chi­nese liv­ing and busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty in Trinidad. You are the fore­run­ners and am­bas­sadors to fos­ter trust and a bet­ter re­la­tion­ship be­tween the mem­bers of the Chi­nese com­mu­ni­ty and the TTPS. You are the em­bod­i­ment of what we call op­er­a­tional ex­cel­lence, de­vel­op­ing ef­fec­tive lead­ers and im­prov­ing staff ca­pac­i­ty and com­pe­ten­cies. You are the ones learn­ing, shar­ing and grow­ing to­geth­er while en­hanc­ing stake­hold­er ex­pe­ri­ence.”

Ac­cord­ing to the top cop, “We should ex­pect few­er bar­ri­ers, few­er ob­sta­cles and few­er de­lays with re­quests for ser­vice, crime re­ports and po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions.”

She said the TTPS will make great use of the train­ing “mov­ing in­to our era of trans­for­ma­tion with­in the TTPS and look for­ward to build­ing on this firm foun­da­tion.”

The TTPS al­so cur­rent­ly has a cus­tomer ser­vice train­ing course be­ing rolled out in every di­vi­sion and sec­tion of the or­gan­i­sa­tion to im­prove stake­hold­er ex­pe­ri­ence.