Educate, uplift and empower.
Those are the three ingredients Minister of Public Utilities Fitzgerald Hinds says he is using in the “success cake” he wants to feed to those living in marginalised and distressed communities. The description might sound cliché, but Hinds said it is a matter of how things are planned, and executed.
Hinds spoke with the T&T Guardian at the St Barbs Laventille basketball court yesterday where he hosted a fun family Christmas event for his Laventille West constituents, Christmas on the Hills. The celebration was just one of the many social engagements Hinds intends to host and which he personally calls “edu-tainment.”
Indeed his “edu-tainment” philosophy was on display as the children at the event were led in a vocabulary challenge where they were taught special words and meanings from the African continent. They were also treated to a near hour-long theatrical play, the story of Anansi and the poinsettia which had the message of one using talent, imagination and creativity to succeed.
“I had a wonderful childhood. We were poor, but we were rich with whatever little we had. I never grew up feeling afraid of being killed at anytime or afraid of being raped or my father being killed. Those things just never happened, so I know what it is to have a wonderful and happy childhood and a wonderful and extended adolescent period.
"I think those two were the bedrock of the solid, sober, mature, contributory life that I now lead as a servant of the people,” said Hinds.
He added, he believes if all children are the beneficiaries of a good secure childhood with examples before them and a solid period of adolescence… a period of innocence to grow and learn safely; and with the hope that parents engender in their children that they must do better than the last generation, then the road to success and living a clean decent life would not seem unattainable.
The minister, who described not being successful at primary and secondary levels at school, said education is the poor and marginalised man’s ticket to success and a life, less poverty stricken.
He said his aspiration is to create an atmosphere and opportunities for children of Laventille and by extension T&T to enjoy the things he enjoyed as a child and the chance to do better than he did.
“Come January I will be meeting with all the NGOs and community and religious- based organisations to discuss plans for this community. We will be meeting on January 17 at the Laventille Technical Institute, where I will share my vision with them and they will share their’s with me and we will see how we can collaborate because we are all working in the same space," he said.
"In addition to that we have some team leaders whose job it is in particular to establish SEA and CXC classes around Laventille,” said Hinds.