Plight of Trinidad man in plane case should be wake-up call to parents – Minister

(Trinidad Guardian) The plight of Nishal Sankat who is charged with at­tempt­ing to steal an Amer­i­can Air­lines plane should serve as a wake-up call to par­ents so that they un­der­stand men­tal health aware­ness says Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Gar­cia urged par­ents to be more vig­i­lant in safe­guard­ing the men­tal well-be­ing of their chil­dren.

“The in­ci­dent in­volv­ing Sankat is a fur­ther wake-up call for a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of men­tal health and well­ness here in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Gar­cia said.

“As I read ar­ti­cles and I hear the con­ver­sa­tions tak­ing place, it con­cerns me that the pop­u­la­tion is not as un­der­stand­ing of the re­al­i­ty of men­tal health as we should be. Nishal Sankat has now re­it­er­at­ed for me, the need for par­ents to be a bit more vig­i­lant and to speak with their chil­dren.”

Gar­cia re­vealed that he spoke with Nishal’s fa­ther, for­mer prin­ci­pal of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Prof Clement Sankat, to of­fer some words of com­fort in this dif­fi­cult time that his fam­i­ly is fac­ing.

“When he men­tioned that de­pres­sion was some­thing his son was deal­ing with, the one thing that res­onat­ed with me was that this could be any of our chil­dren,” Gar­cia said.

“I want par­ents and the pop­u­la­tion to know that there are many re­sources that are avail­able to all cit­i­zens if they ever feel like any sit­u­a­tion is be­com­ing too much to man­age. Nishal went to good schools, had good grades, had the love and sup­port of fam­i­ly and friends and still, some­thing was miss­ing for him that brought him to this point. None of us are ex­empt. All of us have a part to play in break­ing the stig­ma of men­tal health and well­ness and mak­ing it com­fort­able for per­sons who need help, to seek it.”

Gar­cia said the Min­istry will pro­vide sup­port for stu­dents who are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing men­tal health chal­lenges through the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion.

“Our so­cial work­ers and guid­ance coun­sel­lors will of­fer sup­port.”

He said em­ploy­ees can al­so get sup­port through the Em­ploy­ee As­sis­tance Pro­gramme.

“For any mem­ber of the pub­lic, there are men­tal health and well­ness cen­tres across the coun­try that are ac­ces­si­ble. We all have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure that we are our broth­er’s keep­er. Be at­ten­tive, ask ques­tions and be a shoul­der for some­one who may need it. I am thank­ful that the out­come of this un­for­tu­nate in­ci­dent was not a dif­fer­ent one and that I am able to give this mes­sage to­day,” Gar­cia said.

He com­mit­ted him­self to work with schools and stu­dents so that men­tal health is giv­en the same pri­or­i­ty as phys­i­cal health.

Sankat, 22, spent the night in prison af­ter he ap­peared shack­led in a US court charged with un­armed bur­glary, tres­pass­ing, and grand theft. The Pros­e­cu­tion ob­ject­ed to a US$22,500 bond on the ba­sis that Sankat was a dual cit­i­zen of T&T and Cana­da. Sankat was a part-time stu­dent at the Flori­da In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, where he stud­ied Avi­a­tion Man­age­ment. He told the court he did not have a job but in­stead re­ceived a US$5,000 stipend from his fam­i­ly. He al­so con­firmed he had dual cit­i­zen­ship. Sankat was grant­ed a bond on the first two charges but not on the charge of grand theft.