Dominic's bondage to his roots also explains his activist involvement in environmental and social causes designed to promote a better quality of life for the entire twin island community but especially those villages scattered across the north and north-east coasts of Trinidad. His leadership has graced many a protest culminating at Whitehall,P-O-S, the seat of government.Issues across the spectrum ranging from health to bad roads to the slaughter of helpless, docile turtles have been addressed. These days Dominic prefers to build upon the platform of his protesting past by shaping the history of community development he has forged since the early '70's into an effective instrument for constructive social change via community-based eco-tourism. His family and village connections, his affinity with the north coast,his love of nature,his abundant skills in hiking, boating and diving, and above all, his tremendous love for people, friends or strangers, all but guarantees Dominic success in this recently embraced people-centered venture with longtime friend colleague and co-host,Opio Morani, shown in the picture, seated. Since Opio may well help with any touring, Here is some information about him, as told by Dominic: Opio Morani, as told by Dominic: "You should have remained in teaching."This plaintive desire uttered years ago by Opio's elderly mother is rivalled in pathos only by the equally well-intentioned comment by flattering friends-"you would have made a good priest!" Today,Opio,a veteran of community development,former probation officer, former teacher,ex student-priest at St.John Vianney's Seminary,considers himself both priest and teacher, happy in the thought that his career has formalized neither. The references to aborted vocations in teaching and the cloth however summarize and lament what relatives and friends identify in Opio as a bewitchment with seemingly impossible causes.He has had little time for mundane exercises like eight-to-four employment and getting married! Born in May, 1945,Opio is truly a child of the late sixties and raging seventies in revolutionary Trinidad and Tobago. Like so many of his contemporaries,he readily adopted the New World mission of the day that pursued peace,brotherhood and equity within the elusive vision of social justice. Like Dominic,Opio was born and bred near the seacoast.Unlike Dominic's,his upbringing was urban,in a littie town,now a city,called San-Fernando.Paying homage to an earlier promise of academic prowess with a few short stints of formal study,Opio attended to courses in philosphy at the aforementioned seminary and did studies in Social Work at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica.He was also a onetime student at Selly Oak Colleges,Birmingham,UK. Preferring practice to theory,however,he has spent the last three decades as a community development activist principally on the north and north-east coast of Trinidad. Such wide-ranging experience in a people centered discipline has enriched Opio with friends,acquaintances and contacts in diverse fields such as complementary medicine,organic,herbal and floral agriculture,arts and crafts. Whether resulting from the mutual bond of salt sea breezes in our environment,or a more profound concern with the processes of people's development,Dominic and Opio have been thrown together firstly into an activist alliance and friendship spanning the decades,and now presently into a business partnership employing community-based tourism as a tool of development. Salvation of the two hundred million yr. old marine turtle is the latest cause! Dominic and Opio conduct our Six-Day Birding Tour program. |
Dominic was born in August of 1945 in the little hamlet of Matelot on the north coast of
Trinidad. For twenty odd years he worked as an employee of the Ministry
of Health but this did not diminish his yen for the country life, nor in any way
alter his seafaring instincts or rural identity. This remains the only explanation why this son of 'Stormy Weather',as his
deceased father was nicknamed on account of his daring exploits at sea, has
frequently over the years journeyed the seventy five miles of rustic countryside
separating Port-of-Spain, the capital, from rural paradise, his home in Matelot.