Prison Service uses curry duck craze to help officers in need

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

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The Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice has found a unique way of rais­ing funds to care for its own.

Host­ing what or­gan­is­ers claimed was the largest Cur­ry Duck and Car Show Com­pe­ti­tion in the coun­try on Sat­ur­day at the Prison Sports Ground, Pi­ar­co, act­ing Prison Supt Lyn­don Ra­manan said it was aimed at as­sist­ing of­fi­cers who re­quire med­ical sup­port.

“We are rais­ing funds for of­fi­cers who are ill and in need of med­ical as­sis­tance,” he said.

De­scrib­ing it as a no­ble cause to help of­fi­cers, Ra­manan, who is al­so chair­man of the ser­vice’s Health and Well­ness Com­mit­tee, ex­plained that the monies col­lect­ed would be de­posit­ed in­to a fund from which of­fi­cers would be able to ben­e­fit.

He said the com­mit­tee de­cid­ed to “meet the buzz” sur­round­ing the cur­ry duck trend, while the in­clu­sion of a car show helped set the event apart.

With 22 teams reg­is­tered, Ra­manan said the event, which they hope to host bian­nu­al­ly, at­tract­ed par­tic­i­pants from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), the T&T Fire Ser­vice (TTFS), the T&T Reg­i­ment (TTR), as well as mem­bers of the pub­lic.

He said the com­pe­ti­tion formed part of the com­mit­tee’s strate­gic ob­jec­tive of strength­en­ing pub­lic part­ner­ships, not­ing that the role of prison of­fi­cers ex­tend­ed be­yond se­cu­ri­ty.

“While se­cu­ri­ty is a crit­i­cal el­e­ment, re­lat­ing with the pub­lic is even more nec­es­sary. Hence the rea­son why we in­vit­ed the pub­lic to take part.”

The win­ner was set to re­ceive $10,000 in cash, while the sec­ond-place con­tes­tant would col­lect $5,000 and the third-place par­tic­i­pant $3,000.

Point­ing to some of the elab­o­rate pre­sen­ta­tions set up around the sports ground, Ra­manan laugh­ing­ly ad­mit­ted that the event had sur­passed his ex­pec­ta­tions, in­clud­ing the “scram­bled” judg­ing process for the cur­ry duck com­pe­ti­tion.

Asked to ex­plain how prison of­fi­cers could ac­cess funds for med­ical ex­pens­es and what ex­act­ly those ex­pens­es would cov­er, Ra­manan said a three-mem­ber med­ical com­mit­tee had been es­tab­lished to re­view and rule on ap­pli­ca­tions.

He pro­vid­ed an ex­am­ple, say­ing, “Some peo­ple may have a heart con­di­tion and need an an­giogram that is cost­ing $12,000, and they may not be able to get it in the pub­lic health sys­tem in time or they can’t af­ford it pri­vate­ly. This way, we can as­sist them.”

Ra­manan said the prison med­ical of­fi­cer would be re­spon­si­ble for re­fer­ring prison of­fi­cers seek­ing fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to the com­mit­tee.

For Far­isha Khan-Ramd­hanie, of Tri­ni Famalay Duck Me­chan­ics, the event was about spend­ing time to­geth­er as a fam­i­ly while hav­ing fun and build­ing ca­ma­raderie.

Point­ing to three duck­lings in a near­by cage, she ex­plained that they reared their own meat, which was usu­al­ly cooked with fire­wood.

Hav­ing se­cured many “wins” over the past ten years of en­ter­ing com­pe­ti­tions, the team cre­at­ed quite a stir with a spe­cial­ly de­signed me­chan­i­cal­ly op­er­at­ed fire­side, which could spin and al­so be ad­just­ed to suit the chef’s pre­ferred height.

Ja­son Ramb­ha­jan, of the T&T Aux­il­iary Fire Ser­vice, whose team “Blaz­ing Duck of Flavours” cooked every dish on a fire­side, said one of their se­crets was cook­ing with var­i­ous types of wood, in­clud­ing teak and cit­rus, which he as­sured en­hanced the flavour of their dish­es.

Aux­il­iary Fire Ser­vice Chief Staff Of­fi­cer Ron­nie Stan­ley en­dorsed his team’s par­tic­i­pa­tion, ap­plaud­ing the prison ser­vice for or­gan­is­ing the event, which he said was “need­ed” at this time.

Kevin Pysadee, of Duck-Ah-Holics from St Au­gus­tine, said his team had found a way to in­clude their chil­dren, who de­signed the art and craft fea­tured in their pre­sen­ta­tion and over­all dis­play.

Like Khan-Ramd­hanie, he said the event was about spend­ing time with loved ones and cre­at­ing mem­o­ries.

The prison ser­vice Train­ing Col­lege’s team, “D’Quack Shots,” led by De­onar­ine Singh, said their pre­sen­ta­tion cen­tred around the riv­er and hunt­ing. It fea­tured step­ping stones for judges to walk across as they crossed a wood­en bridge over wa­ter, where a blue fold­ing chair sat among fish and bam­boo shoots.

Ap­plaud­ing prison man­age­ment for host­ing the event, Singh said his “se­cret” in­gre­di­ent was the love and pas­sion that went in­to prepar­ing the food. He agreed that all law en­force­ment per­son­nel had been ad­verse­ly im­pact­ed by the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE), and that events such as these pro­vid­ed of­fi­cers with an op­por­tu­ni­ty to spend down­time with their fam­i­lies and loved ones.