Hero Cop from Sangre Grande reads to youngsters

Carisa Lee

Re­porter

[email protected]

Pupils of the San­gre Grande Gov­ern­ment EC­CE Cen­tre read Dr. Seuss’ There’s No Place Like Space: All About Our So­lar Sys­tem aloud with Po­lice Con­sta­ble Dar­i­on Thomas for this years Read Aloud Day.

This year’s theme, “Cel­e­brate Learn­ing,” was re­flect­ed in the ses­sion, which Thomas said sparked cu­rios­i­ty, en­cour­aged a love for read­ing, and sup­port­ed ear­ly learn­ing through ex­plo­ration and imag­i­na­tion.

“The im­por­tance of lit­er­a­cy from my per­spec­tive is that it en­ables per­sons to nav­i­gate through life eas­i­er. When you know how to read, it be­comes eas­i­er to un­der­stand and com­pre­hend ba­sic dai­ly tasks,” he said.

He said he vis­it­ed a pre school be­cause this is when a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the brain de­vel­ops Ac­cord­ing to Thomas, with­in the first 5 years and cul­ti­vat­ing good lit­er­a­cy skills from that time frame will po­si­tion chil­dren for a brighter fu­ture.

“It’s the foun­da­tion on how we write, speak, lis­ten and make cru­cial de­ci­sions,” he said.

PC Thomas is well known for his com­mu­ni­ty out­reach ef­forts in the San­gre Grande area. In De­cem­ber, he host­ed a bi­cy­cle show aimed at en­gag­ing youths in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Of­ten re­ferred to as a “hero cop,” Thomas has helped save mul­ti­ple lives by as­sist­ing women in med­ical emer­gen­cies, in­clud­ing es­cort­ing ex­pec­tant moth­ers to hos­pi­tal to safe­ly de­liv­er or save their ba­bies.

Be­tween late 2022 and 2025, he aid­ed at least four preg­nant women and in­fants by clear­ing traf­fic to en­sure they re­ceived ur­gent med­ical care.