– Former national table tennis player Collette Medas-Forbes to give back to Guyana’s youths
In the 1980’s Collette Medas-Forbes was a young table tennis player aspiring to reach the pinnacle of the sport.
But just as she was about to reach there, the former national player migrated to the United States of America (USA).
There she immersed herself in the field of education rather than sport simply because of the teachings instilled in her by her great grandmother with whom she lived after her mother migrated to the US when she was just two-years-old.
“She stressed that you should have a good education. That you can’t make anything in life without a good education, and that in order to have a good education you needed to be well-fed, you needed to be loved, you needed to be taken care of,” Medas-Forbes told Stabroek Sport of her great grandmother, Daisy St Hill.
The result was that Medas Forbes put down her table tennis racquet, picked up her books and qualified herself as a lawyer.
“With her training, her love, her support, I went to school, did my bachelors and then went to law school and got my juris doctorate (a degree commonly conferred by law schools). I also taught at the University of Illinois,” she added.
Medas-Forbes owes a lot of what she has eventually become and accomplished to her great grandmother who passed away before the former table tennis queen could repay her for investing in her future.
“She had a great heart for children. She never turned anybody away and was always the last to eat and if there was not enough then she would go without,” she told Stabroek Sport of the person who was the single biggest influence in her life.
“She really loved God and felt that God wanted people to be taken care of especially children.
“She always wanted children to feel that they were the most precious things in the world,” she added.
Small wonder then that Medas-Forbes, when she decided that it was time to give back to the country of her birth, also felt that she owed it in some way to honour the memory of her mentor and to continue her late grandmother’s work of assisting needy children.
“I felt in my heart that I needed to come back to Guyana and give back in my great grandmother’s memory and honour,” said Medas-Forbes who two years ago was ordained as a Minister of her church.
As a result, the Daisy St Hill Memorial Foundation was born and there are no prizes for guessing who the beneficiaries will be.
Medas-Forbes told Stabroek Sport that come Saturday, the official launching of the Daisy St Hill Memorial Foundation will take place.
The event will be held at the Church of Christ at 75 E ½ Hadfield Street from 1pm-6pm.
“The kids will have tons of fun. There will be lots of games and food and everything is free,” Medas-Forbes told Stabroek Sport last evening.
Earlier this year Medas Forbes returned to Guyana for her grandfather’s funeral and came face to face with the poverty facing the youths of Guyana.
“ There are so many kids who don’t have, so many kids who are walking the streets, so may kids who don’t have anybody caring for them, so many kids who are hungry, who don’t have clothes, we seem in Guyana, to have lost our children.”
To see a child not have and not cared for and not loved just tears my hear out,” she said pointing out that a lot of parents run off and leave their children because they cannot afford to care for them while some parents have succumbed to the dreads AIDS disease.
Medas Forbes is receiving support from her church, friends and relatives while the local denomination Church of Christ has opened its doors to the Non Governmental Organisation (NGO).
“The organization is designed to help children, help their families with food, with clothing non-perishable items, anything we have.”
Medas Forbes said they received assistance in becoming a Friendly Society by Aggrey Azore of Child Welfare and Genevieve Whyte-Nedd of the Ministry of Education.
Plans to start a feeding by taking food to the schools in January with St Sidwell’s and St Thomas Moore the two schools identified for the pilot project.
Medas-Forbes also plans to start a table tennis arm of the foundation and former three-time national men’s singles champion Colin France will assist with the identification and training of the young players.
Medas-Forbes might not be the table tennis queen she set out to be when she started her ping pong career many years ago at the North Ruimveldt Secondary School but she has proven to be a queen nonetheless, one whose heart is definitely in the right place.
