Damascus' kindness brings rewards

Ten-year-old Damascus Siewnarine's story about how he helped a classmate who was struggling with maths has won him the NGO Kids in Need of Direction (KIND) essay-writing competition. The standard four student at Exchange RC in Couva had to write about a random act of kindness.

He told Newsday Kids that maths is his favourite subject, and through his tutoring his classmates became better at it. He sacrifices his lunchtime to help them.

His mother Rosemarie said when she read his essay, she asked, "It have nothing else (to write about)?"

Damascus said, "This is what I did and I want to write my story. I assist people."

Both his parents are primary-school teachers and his mom is very passionate about creative writing. She encouraged Damascus to make a hobby out of writing stories.

Damascus said, "I write horror stories." But his favourite genre is comedy.

This was his first time competing in a national essay-writing competition, and he had reluctantly written the essay last December after telling his mom, "I'm on holidays! I don't want to."

But, with her encouragement, he did it. He said he was so surprised when representatives of KIND and Trinidad and Tobago Television came to his school when he won.

"I was so excited. I wondered to myself, 'how did I manage to do this at ten and half years old?'

"My friends were very, very surprised," he said with a smile.

He does not know if he will enter another competition but promises to keep his mind open to Commonwealth and Bocas LitFest opportunities. But his mother insists he will enter every competition from now on because he was blessed with a talent.

Damascus said his biggest writing inspirations come from the power of God in his life – and the Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

For fun, he plays video games, cricket and pan. He learnt to play the steelpan just by practising at Our Lady of Mt Carmel RC church, gradually mastering it. Now, he plays for the Living Water Community. He is also an altar server and a pianist. He plays at church in Freeport, while his brother Dimitri sings and his mom plays the guitar. Besides hymns, Damascus loves to play Despacito by Luis Fonzi and Circles by Post Malone. He said he never gets nervous when he plays before an audience.

He also makes flipbooks – a series of images which gradually change from one page to the next, so when viewed quickly, it looks like a motion picture.

"It's basically like an animation. You kinda have a whole cartoon coming across when you clip the pages together."

He hopes to attend Presentation College, Chaguanas and become a chef when he gets older.

He expressed his gratitude to his school's 4H club and Ms Natasha Lee for the opportunity to write the essay. Through his success KIND donated $1,000 to the club.