Time for our people to return home for good

These are Trini graduates who are engineers, architects, lawyers, doctors, teachers, management personnel and tradesmen and women. Most, if not all, harbour dreams of returning to TT , inadequate employment opportunities, poor security and substandard healthcare.

Each year it pains me to see our children graduate from our colleges and universities and thereafter leave our shores for a better quality of life abroad. What is exceedingly difficult to accept is the reality that things could be much different. It is so easy to create opportunities for our children to live here and enjoy a quality of life superior to that in the US, Canada and England.

We have the land, climate and crops to feed ourselves, the water to distribute to all, the weather to facilitate year-round development and the personnel to execute the tasks necessary for a better TT . What we are missing is the political will to start the process of development. We all know what to do, the question is when. Why not now? We know that we must transform our water distribution system to gravity feed so that there can be a reliable uninterrupted water supply to all of little TT .

We know that we can attract all our foreign engineers, architects and construction personnel as we build bridges to the islands off our west coast, construct a new network of roads, build eco-friendly access roads to our mountains, and rebuild and renovate our deteriorating infrastructure.

Our personnel abroad and in the country can find lifelong gainful employment as we build our railway system and transform the Laventille hills and Sea Lots into modern urban centres.

As we rebuild our health facilities and restructure our education system to ensure that schools meet the demands of a modern world, our foreign professionals can return to share their knowledge with a re-energised TT .

Our beaches, mountains, caves and tropical forests can be transformed into world class tourist destinations.

Yes, we don’t have to watch the rest of the world utilise the talents of our students.

We can provide them with the opportunity to build their dreams at home. We simply have to develop the will to start the transformation now.

Steve Alvarez via emaild.”