President encourages youth to focus on the positive

Senior Reporter

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President Christine Kangaloo is encouraging the nation’s youth to ignore negativity and focus on doing positive things in life.

This is the message she shared with the award nominees at the Ministry of Youth Development and National Service’s (MYDNS) 28th National Awards Ceremony on Thursday.

Drawing from her personal experiences, President Kangaloo shared that she too has had to fight past criticisms of the colour of her skin and her accolades and not let any negativity hinder her from achieving her goals.

Addressing the audience, President Kangaloo said, “I, myself, have had to strike that balance in my own life. As one of two sisters growing up, I remember having to fight the balance when one Sunday morning going to church, a parishioner looked at my younger sister and complimented her on her beauty and turned to me with a look of scorn and said, ‘Why are you so black?’

“All my life, I have had to stand up for what is good inside of me against all of the negativity that has sometimes been thrown at me from the world outside. It isn’t always easy. In fact, it is often an extremely difficult thing to do but it is vitally necessary that each of us does it. It is vitally necessary that you, our nominees do it, and it is vitally necessary that our society learns to do it.”

She added, “It is no honourable thing that our criticism and our cynicism have grown into that demeaning saying, ‘Trinidad is not a real place’. It certainly sometimes feels as if we live in a society of non-believers and disbelievers. The disadvantage of that kind of mindset is that if we suck too long on the diet of negativity that it offers, we can all become jaded and broken. Tonight’s awards ceremony is a chance for all of our nominees to break free from that kind of mindset and to start building a healthier, more loving view of themselves.”

It was all about youth excellence at the awards ceremony, from highlighting young people doing great things in agriculture, sport, culture and the arts, and business among other categories, as the MYDNS celebrated young people from across Trinidad and Tobago.

Winning the top awards of the night were 16-year-old rising cricket star Brianna Harricharan, who won the Youth of the Year award in the ten-17 age category and 27-year-old entrepreneur Dareem Jeffery in the 18-35 years category.

Harricharan, who is also skilled in martial arts and tennis, was recently selected on the Under-19 West Indies cricket team.

Jeffery is the founder of Eco-wash, an award-winning car-wash company that uses eco pods, a device that guarantees a clean car using only two litres of water.

His company’s unique business model involves empowering youth by giving them the opportunity to run their own units while simultaneously reducing water usage, especially during the dry season.