TT Prime Minister: Give Our Families Love for 2020

IN his New Year message for 2020, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is asking citizens of Trinidad and Tobago to cherish family life and care about the elderly and children.

Full text of the PM’s New Year message:

Fel­low Cit­i­zens,

I bring you greet­ings on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and from my­self, and my fam­i­ly.

As we close 2019, open­ing a new year and poised for a new decade, some may greet the cross-over with re­li­gious solem­ni­ty and fam­i­ly gath­er­ings, oth­ers may choose to con­tin­ue with the mer­ri­ment of the sea­son. It is the time, when we all tend to come to­geth­er as a com­mu­ni­ty, when our year-round dif­fer­ences dis­ap­pear, re­placed by ex­pres­sions of in­ti­ma­cy, care and love for all those we meet.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, in a few hours, a few may re­vert to cold, in­dif­fer­ent lives, com­mu­ni­cat­ing main­ly with their dis­tant, on-line friends, rather than ex­tend­ing these warm, gen­uine, hu­man feel­ings to their chil­dren, their part­ners, per­sons on the street, or those sit­ting next to them.

It is said that one of the great­est tragedies of mod­ern-day life is that hu­mans have be­come dis­ori­ent­ed, alien­at­ed from them­selves, and deep down they are lone­ly.

As we, in Trinidad and To­ba­go, greet a new year, which promis­es a New So­ci­ety, New Fu­ture, the im­memo­r­i­al ques­tion about life’s mean­ing will con­tin­ue with us, but it is up to each one of us to an­swer the ques­tion, and the roles we must play, in his or in our own way.

But let us all start with our chil­dren. Yes, our jobs de­mand most of our wak­ing hours, but we have to be con­cerned with those we have brought in­to this world. The hu­man in­fant of all the mam­mals is said to be the most help­less, there­fore, from ear­ly life a child’s first need is to bond with its par­ents.

As such, much of the crime and vi­o­lence we see to­day can be traced back to per­sons car­ry­ing emo­tion­al wounds, with vague feel­ings of be­ing un­want­ed in their ear­ly life.

So, from to­day let us all re­turn to our hu­man hearts; let this be the pe­ri­od when we all re­turn to our homes, giv­ing our chil­dren their needs, prepar­ing our fam­i­lies, with dai­ly, emo­tion­al pro­grammes of love, joy and hap­pi­ness.

In this New Year, as the Ca­lyp­son­ian, Mer­chant, sang some thir­ty years ago, “Let’s all think about the chil­dren”.

As Prime Min­is­ter, I plan to reach out more, mak­ing fur­ther ap­peals that fam­i­lies pause, and pay more at­ten­tion to both their chil­dren, and the el­der­ly.

At the same time, let us pledge, in 2020, to re­duce our dif­fer­ences, our prej­u­dices, in­stead reach­ing out to every­one we meet, with ci­vil­i­ty, see­ing them as liv­ing hu­man be­ings, a broth­er, a sis­ter, and fel­low cit­i­zen of this great coun­try.

May God Bless you all, and the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go.