TEDxPortofSpain Announces our Fifth Batch of Speakers

As anticipation builds for this year’s conference centred around the theme of Connecting, we are thrilled to announce our fifth and final batch of speakers for TEDxPortofSpain 30.11.13 at the Central Bank Auditorium!

Our tickets are now available for reservation through our website too. Get yours early as we’re doing them on a first come, first served basis and we expect them to go fairly quickly!

We have an incredible list of speakers this year, including:

• Wayne Kublalsingh
• Stacy-Marie Ishmael
• Attillah Springer
• Etienne Charles
• Dominique Le Gendre
• Gabrielle Hosein
• Keegan Taylor and Rondel Benjamin
• Erle Rahaman-Noronha
• Debrah Lewis
• Father Clyde Martin Harvey

Debrah Lewis

Debrah Lewis is the first Vice President of the International Confederation of Midwives from the Caribbean. After receiving an MSc in Nurse-Midwifery from Columbia University in 1986, she worked in New York as a public and private practice midwife and also volunteered in Africa. Lewis’ leadership led to the formation of the Caribbean Regional Midwifery Association and the Trinidad and Tobago Association of Midwives. She is passionate about strengthening the network of midwives in the Caribbean and ultimately, the world.

Lewis is also a member of the Nursing Council and founding member of Mamatoto Resource and Birth Centre. In 2001, she and other independent midwives formed Mamatoto, providing a supportive environment for families who wanted a more natural and individualised birthing experience such as water birth and alternative pain management.

Lewis has been a nurse for 34 years and a midwife for 26 years. She has served on many committees in the Ministry of Health and other non-governmental organizations. She is a clinical preceptor for Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania and McMaster University. She also finds time to contribute to the Midwifery Today magazine. She makes her home in Trinidad with her husband Derrick and daughter Masika.

Father Clyde Martin Harvey

When he was awarded the Humming Bird Medal Gold for Religion and Community Service in 2011, Fr. Clyde Martin Harvey was not too enthused about writing HBM after his name. Instead his personal letterhead carries the exclamation, Human Beings Matter, and he promised to be guided by that principle as he sought to respond to the deepest meaning of this national award.

Although he likes to say that he is just a parish priest, there is more to Fr. Clyde Martin Harvey than just saying prayers, heaven and hell. Father Clyde Martin Harvey is a tall, stately man who is compassionate and humble. This lecturer, Vicar for Clergy and Hummingbird Gold medal recipient is one of our country’s most charismatic leaders. He comes down from the altar with a practical approach, serving God and his people.

As a priest, his strong social and political statements indeed make him an anomaly. However, he has been rather vocal since his days of basketball and public speaking at St. Mary’s College. After entering the Seminary of St John Vianney and the Uganda Martyrs in 1967, Fr Harvey attended UWI where he studied Politics and Sociology. He then attained a MA in Theology magna cum laude from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. In 1976, he was ordained a priest by Archbishop Anthony Pantin who once told him that “BA can mean Bachelor of Arts…it can also mean Big A double S-and we all have the potential to be both”. It is this kind of wisdom that he passes on to youth, the disadvantaged and others. After ordination and some pastoral work, he did further post-graduate studies at Lancaster University and the Graduate Theological Union in California. He teaches courses in ethics and comparative religion at the Seminary and UWI. In 2012, he received an honourary LLD from UWI.

This down-to-earth man of the cloth understands the realities of communities such as Laventille, Morvant, Maloney, San Fernando and Gonzales in which he has served as priest. In Laventille, he allowed youth to play in front of the Shrine, a space which often became Desperados Steelband stage. He develops a close relationship with his community and relates to them on their level of understanding.

Fr Harvey is a co-founder of LIFELINE and founder of two HIV-support organisations. He chairs the Morris Marshall Development Foundation and the Community Intervention for Transformation and Empowerment (CIT+E) which provide educational and personal development opportunities in Laventille and East Port-of-Spain. He is a passionate servant, a man of God but also of the people.