RC schools part of National Trust’s Heritage Keepers Project

By Lara Pickford-Gordon

snrwriter.camsel@catholictt.org

The Arima Dial meant different things to Joseph Bertrand, his father and grandfather. But he realised this landmark of Arima was a shared heritage for them.

“For my grandfather, it meant landmark, because it is something that went up. For my father, it meant identity, part of the identify of Arima, and for me, at a young age, it meant a liming spot because that was the only place you would have music playing. So, my friends, we would lime there, we couldn’t go into a bar as a child,” he said.

As an adult, Bertrand became aware they each took the long way journeying home to pass the ‘Dial’. This, he said, is something only someone from Arima could understand.

This lived experience of heritage is why the Heritage Keepers Project, a youth programme of the Trinidad and Tobago National Trust is dear to Bertrand’s heart. “These little nuances of the community are what we are trying to pull out of the students… the children of the community” he told The Catholic News in response to questions.

The Project has been in existence since 2018 and won the Open Minds Heritage Award from the International National Trusts Organisation in 2019.

The pilot is an enhanced version of the project rolling out this term, starting at Todd’s Road RC School. Two other Central Trinidad RC schools, Brasso Seco and Tabaquite, will participate in time.

The Catholic Education Board of Management (CEBM) is supportive. Fr David Khan, Vicar for Education and CEBM Chief Executive Officer said, “When children are introduced early to their story, they do not encounter the past as something distant or abstract. They come to understand where they came from, how their communities were shaped, and why these stories matter. This grounding forms a deeper sense of belonging and civic responsibility that no textbook alone can provide”.

On January 26, Heritage Trust representatives visited the three schools along the Valley Line district to discuss the programme. Bertrand said: “It was important for us to visit the area because of the rich history of the Brasso area and Todd’s Road area has with our train system. So, this connector that connects each of the schools together, we would be able to create this larger project later down, once the children are ingrained in the Heritage Keepers Project.”

He explained that local heritage and heritage assets surrounding the school will be used to engender pride, initiate the growth of heritage societies and longer-term professionals in the field of conservation.

Bertrand explained the Heritage Trust will assist schools with information on local history and heritage to “build something for the students to then work towards”.

Infants to Standard Five classes will take part in the project and different activities will be implemented during the term. He shared a general outline for Todd’s Road RC as follows:

• Infants—Curiosity and Family Heritage
• Standard One—Active Exploration
• Standard Two—Heritage Mapping
• Standard Three—Preserving Our Heritage
• Standard Four—Taking Ownership
• Standard Five—Heritage Hunt and Heritage Showcase

Illustrating how these will be implemented as activities to engage the children, Bertrand said heritage can be incorporated into story time for the First Year classes and the children can create a memory box.

In Second Year, the class exercise can be researching the family tree and traditions and the memory box expanded.  “And we [are] not leaving out teachers so using storytelling to build, listening and speaking and comprehension skills,” he said.

Bertrand said the children will use journalling, documenting, and photographs during the project. The Trust will monitor during the term to improve the project with feedback from principals and teachers.

Bertrand said parents will also be involved in the conversation about heritage and identity, “with our youth understanding firmly that they are the custodians of our heritage”.

Depending on space availability, he hopes the children’s heritage journals can be kept in their school’s libraries. “Could you imagine 50 years from now, you have a student of Todd’s Road, telling you about the community through their eyes. That gives a better understanding of the community rather than a historian looking into the community,” Bertrand said. He stressed the pivotal role people play in preserving their heritage. Alluding to his own experience, he said: “people begin to form deep relationships with heritage and our heritage assets from when they are young.”