Call her Madam President.
Meet Paula Mae Weekes, a retired judge who just became the first black female president of Trinidad and Tobago.
Following her swearing in, President Weekes said that citizens have to make the choice to fight the ‘darkness’ threatening the nation.
“Our destinies are inextricably linked. Many experts beset us with dismal stories, they tell us Trinidad and Tobago is perilously close to the point of no return….that we will soon be a failed state….so what are we to do?”
“As I see it, we have two choices; we can lament, blame, criticise and allow a miasma of despair to overwhelm us, or we can consciously choose the alternative…not dream about the alternatives but mobilise our resources to step out boldly and make Trinidad and Tobago a better place for us and our children…all the while understanding that although faith is a necessity, without action it is useless.”
“Confront the darkness and declare that it will not take over…good things are indeed possible for Trinidad and Tobago,”she said.Paula Mae Weekes is the sixth President of Trinidad and Tobago and carries on from former president Anthony Carmona.
Paula Mae Weekes is the sixth President of Trinidad and Tobago and carries on from former president Anthony Carmona.
A former student of Bishop Anstey High School, she attended the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, from which she graduated with a Bachelor of Laws degree. She then went on to the Hugh Wooding Law School and was called to the Bar in 1982. After graduation, she worked in the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions for 11 years, before going into private practice in 1993.
She was appointed to the judiciary in 1996 and to the Court of Appeals in 2005, where she served until her retirement in 2016.
Culled from Looptt
