Kailey Panchoo wins schools' diabetes quiz

Kailey Panchoo, ten, of San Fernando TML Primary School, beat 542 other students to win the National Diabetes Primary School Quiz on May 27.

She was one of 15 standard three students participating at the finals of the Diabetes Association of Trinidad and Tobago’s second annual national quiz at the Learning Resource Centre Auditorium, UWI St Augustine campus.

The second-place winner was Dylan Harripaul of Arima Presbyterian Primary School, and Catriona Bethelmy of San Fernando TML took third place. Finalists also included a home schooled student, Arya Ralph, and Nikayah Matson from Tobago.

Kailey said she had been preparing for the quiz since March, so when she won she was both shocked and overjoyed. She said she was scared during the finals because everyone was watching her, but the prizes she won – a laptop, a printer, a JTA vouchers – made up for the nerves.

She said her mother Nadine Geoffroy, and Catriona’s mother Dr Vanessa Harry, helped get the three San Fernando TML students ready for the quiz by reviewing the three documents and 14 videos they had to learn with them.

“I think I might want to enter another competition because it was a very good experience. I like how it was packed with information that you could use for other stuff.”

Asked what she would do with all the knowledge she now had about diabetes she said, “I probably would inform my schoolmates about it and tell them about diabetes. My family and I already started exercising more, just doing more physical activity.”

Panchoo said she wanted to be an astronaut and hoped to one day study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts and then Queen’s University in Canada. She is ready to do the work to make that happen.

At the diabetes quiz finals, president of the Diabetes Association Andrew Dhanoo said the association was trying to empower primary school children to learn about their health and be advocates for diabetes.

He said recent statistics from the World Health Organization put TT in the top ten countries for overweight children under the age of five. Also, the 2017 Global School-based Student Health Survey said half the country’s adolescent population were either overweight or obese.

“That 2017 survey was before the covid19 pandemic. We know that number might be even higher now.

“The reason we are doing this is because we know of the issue of childhood obesity and Type 2 diabetes growing in children. We are empowering children, teaching them, educating them. We hope this is one of the first steps to lead them towards a healthy life.”

He said twice as many students participated this year and he hopes all primary schools in TT will participate next year.

“The children are extremely intelligent to the point where we had to make up questions for them at the end, but we had a winner and she is an extremely bright little girl.”

Director of NCDs at the Ministry of Health Maria Clapperton encouraged the children to talk to everybody they knew about diabetes, how it affects the body, and what they can do to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

She encouraged the audience to eat more fruits and vegetables, drink more water, to move more and to go for annual medical check-ups at their doctor or nearest local health facility.

“To all parents and children present, let us all work together to fight the scourge of childhood obesity which continues to rise globally and more so in our Caribbean region. Let us all do our part for example, to pack healthy snacks and lunches in lunch kits and cut down on the consumption of sugar sweetened beverages at school. We can all do more to increase our daily levels of physical activity. We can all move more!”