Their Excellencies Christine Carla Kangaloo O.R.T.T., President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, and Kerwyn Garcia S.C., First Gentleman, attended the Tackveeyatul Islamic Association’s (TIA) 100 Years of Islamic Service celebration on Saturday July 11, 2026.
Delivering the feature address, Her Excellency reflected on TIA’s century of service to Trinidad and Tobago and challenged the Association to continue shaping future generations through faith, compassion and service. She reminded those gathered that, “A centenary also entrusts it with a sacred responsibility to the future: to continue to form young people who unite conviction with compassion, achievement with responsibility and faith with service; and to remind Trinidad and Tobago that unity does not ask us to surrender identity. It asks us to bring the best of who we are to the service of a shared homeland.”
See the full text of the address delivered by Her Excellency Christine Carla Kangaloo O.R.T.T., President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago below:
Assalamu alaikum and good afternoon.
It is an honour to share this centenary with you. On behalf of the people of Trinidad and Tobago, I congratulate the Tackveeyatul Islamic Association on one hundred years of faith, education and service.
A centenary asks more of us than applause. It asks us to consider what an institution chose to protect, what it chose to pass on, and why its work still matters.
Since 1926, TIA has made those choices with clarity. Its early members chose organisation over isolation, education over exclusion, and service over indifference. They established the first national Muslim organisation in Trinidad and Tobago and gave it a purpose that reached far beyond its membership.
In time, TIA broke new ground as the first non-Christian body in our country to receive state aid for education. Today, its five primary schools and two Early Childhood Care and Education centres carry that legacy into the lives of new generations. This legacy has a measurable form, but numbers do not contain its deepest value. Each school opens minds, forms character and helps young people choose a surer path.
Your centenary also coincides with two national milestones: the 150th anniversary of President’s House and the 50th anniversary of our Republic. These anniversaries remind us that an institution may inherit history, but only service earns public trust.
At my inauguration in 2023, I pledged to help demystify the role of President and to make the Presidency more accessible to the people whom it serves. Since then, the First Gentleman and I have visited more than sixty schools across Trinidad and Tobago.
Our encounters with TIA schools left a deep impression on us. At Warrenville TIA Primary School, and in our exchange with students of Lengua Islamia TIA Primary School at President’s House, we saw discipline without harshness, confidence without conceit, faith without exclusion, and ambition anchored in character.
Those qualities do not arise by accident. Principals, teachers, boards, parents and communities create them through patient work and common purpose.
TIA’s schools teach children more than facts. They teach them how to think critically, how to serve, how to respect themselves, and how to recognise the dignity of others. An examination result measures one moment; character shapes a lifetime. For its sustained contribution to the education and development of our young people, TIA deserves the nation’s gratitude.
One line from TIA’s own message captures this ethic: “Service to mankind is service to God.” Those words join faith to citizenship. They remind us that our responsibilities to one another flow from our spiritual lives, and that faith finds its clearest public expression in service.
That understanding has practical demands. It asks us to remember the elderly, the sick and those in need; to make time for young people; and to treat service not as an occasional gesture, but as a settled duty. It asks us to measure our values not only by what we profess, but by the care, time and hope we offer to others.
Imagine the Trinidad and Tobago we could build if every citizen embraced that ethic: a country in which no elderly person feels forgotten, no young person lacks encouragement and no family in difficulty stands alone. Our communities would be stronger, our nation more united and many of our challenges easier to overcome.
These values transcend any one organisation or community. Nation-building has never been the responsibility of governments alone. It depends on parents who teach, teachers who inspire, neighbours who care, volunteers who give, and institutions such as TIA that form character and strengthen the bonds between us.
TIA’s contribution has also reached far beyond the classroom. Through children’s literature, the Trinidad and Tobago Muslim Almanac, weekly radio programmes, outreach and practical assistance, the Association has preserved and shared the traditions of Islam while encouraging learning, reflection and service across the wider national community. It has shown how fidelity to one’s faith can deepen one’s commitment to the common good.
This is TIA’s true legacy. It lives not only in schools, publications and programmes, important as they are, but in generations of citizens whose lives have been shaped; in families strengthened; in young people inspired; and in countless acts of service that have made communities across Trinidad and Tobago more compassionate, resilient and hopeful. That is a legacy worthy of celebration.
A centenary therefore gives TIA much to celebrate. But a centenary and also entrusts it with a scared responsibility to the future: to continue to form young people who unite conviction with compassion, achievement with responsibility and faith with service; and to remind Trinidad and Tobago that unity does not ask us to surrender identity. It asks us to bring the best of who we are to the service of a shared homeland.
On behalf of the people of Trinidad and Tobago, I congratulate the Tackveeyatul Islamic Association, its leaders, members, teachers, parents, students and friends on this centenary.
Time alone does not make a centenary. Faithfulness does. For one hundred years, TIA has kept faith: with God, with education, with service and with Trinidad and Tobago. May the Association keep that faith for the next hundred years.
May Almighty God bless the Tackveeyatul Islamic Association, the Muslim community and the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.
I thank you.
See full album of event below:
