Chaguanas pays tribute to families

Chaguanas Mayor Dr Suruj Rambachan gave that description at the borough’s 44th annual Independence celebration at Saith Park last Tuesday night.

He told a large gathering that “we have become a place to live, work, study and visit, and we hope that you will help us to realise this vision.”

The mayor said in the “pursuit of this transformation of Chaguanas to a city of opportunity, we should become empowered by the lives and experiences of those who have contributed to the building of the area, and tonight we are launching volume one of The Contributors, with profiles of individuals and families, who have contributed to the growth of the borough.”

The mayor said that they were working on volume two to capture more persons and expand on volume one.

“ We thought we would use this anniversary of Independence to launch this very important historical book which would be of literary significance to the people of the country,” he added.

With respect to Independence, the mayor said that the “freedom for which our nation builders struggled and which was achieved in 1962, should never be taken lightly.

“To have the opportunity for self determination, to collectively craft the destiny into which we would prefer to arrive in the future, is what independence should mean to a large extent,” he said. He said that colonial masters at one time shaped the destiny of places they governed and they believed that they were superior to others.

The mayor said that there were many challenges facing politically independent countries.

He felt that Trinidad and Tobago had achieved much more in its 44 years of Independence than other nations over a similar period and “today we must pay tribute to the resilience and courage, the entrepreneurial vision and determination of our people to become economically independent.”

The mayor said, “Today we must celebrate the religious zeal with which the majority of our people continue to guide their lives. It is this emphasis on our religious ideals and on entrepreneurship that in my view has brought about a decent quality of life , though now threatened as it is by forces that do not hold sacred the same human values which characterise the lives of the majority of our citizens.”