Moko Jumbie Master gets Hummingbird Bronze

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

Cul­tur­al icon and Moko Jumbie Mas­ter Ju­nior Bis­nath, whose life’s work has kept hun­dreds of young peo­ple off the streets, will re­ceive the Hum­ming­bird Medal Bronze for his con­tri­bu­tion to cul­ture.

For more than three decades, Bis­nath has used moko jumbie walk­ing, wood­work­ing and cul­tur­al per­for­mance to give chil­dren from some of San Fer­nan­do’s most dis­ad­van­taged com­mu­ni­ties a sense of dis­ci­pline, pur­pose and pride.

Known af­fec­tion­ate­ly as the “Con­struc­tive Ter­mite,” Bis­nath has trained more than 4,000 chil­dren free of charge over the past 30 years, many of whom have gone on to per­form in­ter­na­tion­al­ly and find em­ploy­ment as pro­fes­sion­al stilt walk­ers.

His stu­dents have rep­re­sent­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go on in­ter­na­tion­al stages, in­clud­ing the open­ing of the FI­FA World Cup, while oth­ers have trav­elled to Ger­many, Zim­bab­we, Eng­land and Pana­ma for per­for­mances and moko jumbie train­ing.

For Bis­nath, how­ev­er, the great­est re­ward has nev­er been in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion or a na­tion­al award.

“It is the love of coun­try, love of hu­mans and any­thing we could do to help build our coun­try and make it a bet­ter and safe place,” he told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

He said peo­ple had been ask­ing him for years whether he had re­ceived a na­tion­al award.

“And my an­swer to that would be, no, not as yet. Oth­er peo­ple did things be­fore me, and their turn is like now, and my time will come.”

Now, at 69, his time has come.

Bis­nath said he was pleased to re­ceive the ho­n­our, par­tic­u­lar­ly be­cause of the lev­el at which his stu­dents have per­formed in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

“When you watch how oth­er peo­ple achieve what they achieve to re­ceive na­tion­al awards, my work is at that lev­el,” he said.

He re­called that some of his stu­dents per­formed at the open­ing of the FI­FA World Cup, say­ing reach­ing that stage re­quired per­form­ers to be among the best in the world.

Bis­nath said his jour­ney be­gan in San Fer­nan­do.

The youngest son in a fam­i­ly of 14 chil­dren, he grew up on Broad­way and failed the Com­mon En­trance ex­am­i­na­tion twice. He nev­er at­tend­ed sec­ondary school but dis­cov­ered a pas­sion for wood­work­ing.

“When I was 15, I left pri­ma­ry school and start­ed to do work with Mr Bar­row. We nev­er ran out of work, and I used more hand tools, but I want­ed to learn how to use wood­work­ing ma­chines,” he re­called.

He even­tu­al­ly joined Cos­mic Wood­work Fac­to­ry, where he worked for 43 years and learned to build fur­ni­ture.

His wood­work­ing skills lat­er be­came the foun­da­tion for his work with moko jumbies.

In 1988, dur­ing the last Bor­ough Day cel­e­bra­tions, Bis­nath and his friends Mc­Fos­ter Joseph and Charles Far­row staged a wood­work ex­hi­bi­tion and adopt­ed the name “Con­struc­tive Ter­mites”.

Grow­ing up in Carl­ton Lane, Bis­nath said he was al­ways con­scious of the chal­lenges faced by young peo­ple in dis­ad­van­taged com­mu­ni­ties.

Bis­nath, who re­tired on Sep­tem­ber 4, 2017, has since de­vot­ed his time ful­ly to youth de­vel­op­ment and pre­serv­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cul­tur­al her­itage.

He is now build­ing over his school and de­vel­op­ing a mu­se­um to house cul­tur­al arte­facts he has col­lect­ed dur­ing the past 40 years.

Bis­nath said he is ded­i­cat­ing his na­tion­al award to the teach­ers who helped shape his life, par­tic­u­lar­ly his pri­ma­ry school teacher Joan Yuille Williams.

He re­called be­ing the first stu­dent to vol­un­teer when she asked who want­ed to learn wood­work­ing.

Say­ing he felt hum­bled by the award, Bis­nath said the ho­n­our is al­so an op­por­tu­ni­ty to cel­e­brate the wider com­mu­ni­ty that helped shape his jour­ney.

Next year, Bis­nath said he plans to mark his 70th birth­day by at­tempt­ing a Guin­ness World Record, while al­so pay­ing trib­ute to the schools of San Fer­nan­do, the city’s teach­ers and stu­dents.

He al­so wants the event to co­in­cide with the coun­try’s 65th an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence, San Fer­nan­do’s 38th year as a city and the 38th an­niver­sary of the Con­struc­tive Ter­mites.

Bis­nath said al­though the medal may car­ry na­tion­al recog­ni­tion, his lega­cy re­mains root­ed in the chil­dren he has taught and the cul­ture he con­tin­ues to pre­serve.