KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

Kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Say­ee­da Khan has spent near­ly four decades shap­ing young minds, but even in re­tire­ment, her mis­sion to guide the next gen­er­a­tion con­tin­ues. As a for­mer teacher, vice prin­ci­pal, and prin­ci­pal, she has wit­nessed first-hand how friend­ships can be test­ed—es­pe­cial­ly in to­day’s dig­i­tal age.

Her lat­est con­tri­bu­tion, a short sto­ry ti­tled A Friend­ship Sto­ry, pub­lished in the IQRA An-Nisa Women’s Mag­a­zine, delves in­to a top­ic she be­lieves par­ents and ed­u­ca­tors can no longer ig­nore: the im­pact of tech­nol­o­gy on re­la­tion­ships. The piece fol­lows two young girls whose friend­ship un­rav­els due to a tech­no­log­i­cal mis­step, bring­ing to light is­sues that res­onate with both the younger and old­er gen­er­a­tions.

“When Azz­izah Mo­hammed-Ma­jeed came to me with the idea of putting out a women’s mag­a­zine, she in­di­cat­ed that she want­ed to tar­get a broad cross-sec­tion of read­ers,” she said.

“She asked if I would do some­thing for the younger read­ers. Of course, that was right up my al­ley be­cause I’ve been in the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor for 37 years.

“My con­tri­bu­tion took the form of a sto­ry aimed at adding va­ri­ety to the mag­a­zine. The syn­op­sis of the sto­ry is about the friend­ship of two girls and the use of a tech­no­log­i­cal de­vice, which caused that friend­ship to go awry. It al­so brings to the fore­front a num­ber of is­sues, which we as adults need to pay at­ten­tion to and guide these young ones ac­cord­ing­ly.”

Through her short sto­ry, A Friend­ship Sto­ry, Khan high­lights press­ing is­sues that af­fect both young and old­er gen­er­a­tions.

A Friend­ship Sto­ry al­so ex­plores the theme of for­give­ness. More than just a cau­tion­ary tale, it delves in­to trust, peer in­flu­ence, and the im­por­tance of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion—a virtue Khan feels is fad­ing in to­day’s fast-paced, tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven world.

“For­give­ness is some­thing that’s lack­ing in so­ci­ety,” she ex­plained. “I hope that the mes­sage will be reached by many, and they will be able to use it to some ex­tent in grow­ing their chil­dren.”

Be­yond her work as a writer, Khan’s life­long ded­i­ca­tion to ed­u­ca­tion has giv­en her a front-row seat to the chal­lenges fac­ing to­day’s youth. “Chil­dren to­day are grow­ing up in a dig­i­tal world that we nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced,” she said. “We can’t teach them the way we were taught. We need to un­der­stand their re­al­i­ty and guide them ac­cord­ing­ly.”

Khan en­tered the teach­ing ser­vice at 21 and pro­gressed through the ranks, serv­ing as a teacher, vice prin­ci­pal, and even­tu­al­ly prin­ci­pal.

“I hold a bach­e­lor’s de­gree in Ed­u­ca­tion­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion,” she said.

“I was in­volved in mark­ing both SEA and Na­tion­al Tests; served in the eval­u­a­tion of the Fa­cil­i­ta­tors pro­gramme in Math­e­mat­ics and Read­ing; and was in­volved in the roll-out of the sci­ence cur­ricu­lum at the pri­ma­ry lev­el.”

The re­tired prin­ci­pal hopes her ar­ti­cle reach­es a broad au­di­ence and em­pha­sis­es the im­por­tance of set­ting pri­or­i­ties in life.

“My ex­pe­ri­ences in the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor en­abled me to iden­ti­fy and pri­ori­tise the main is­sues that are ad­dressed in the ar­ti­cle,” she added.

“Re­li­gion and re­li­gious prac­tices; sec­u­lar ed­u­ca­tion, friend­ship, for­give­ness, tech­nol­o­gy and its in­flu­ence on the youths of to­day, as well as par­ent­ing and its im­por­tance.”As a moth­er of one and grand­moth­er of two, Khan, 58, un­der­stands how eas­i­ly young chil­dren can be dis­tract­ed by tech­nol­o­gy.

“We as adults need to con­trol; we do not just use it as a babysit­ting de­vice,” she said.

“Some of us do that some­times, but dan­gers lurk there be­cause it is so easy to just press a but­ton and all sorts of things will come up. It is very im­por­tant that we as adults guide them and show them how to use these de­vices.”

Al­though pub­lished in a women’s mag­a­zine, Khan stressed that the ar­ti­cle is rel­e­vant to any­one in­vest­ed in guid­ing young minds.

“It’s not just for Mus­lims, it’s not just for young ones, it’s not just for women, it’s for any­one in­ter­est­ed in ed­u­cat­ing and guid­ing these young minds,” she said.

“This gen­er­a­tion is born of the tech­no­log­i­cal age; we are not. We can’t use what we learnt and how we learnt things to teach them now; we have to know it is dif­fer­ent.”

Khan is the daugh­ter of the for­mer pres­i­dent of the Di­a­mond Vil­lage Masjid, Ha­ji Fy­zo­ol Khan. As a mem­ber of the Di­a­mond Vil­lage Mosque Women’s As­so­ci­a­tion, Khan con­tin­ues to lend sup­port in mo­ti­va­tion­al lec­tures and char­i­ty work.