KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

Kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Zainab Ab­dul­lah wears many hats—wife, moth­er, ed­u­ca­tor, and coun­sel­lor—but above all, she strives to be a con­stant source of mo­ti­va­tion to those around her.

The Bish­op Anstey High School Port-of-Spain teacher who takes pride in all her roles. Yet, over time, she has come to a pow­er­ful re­al­i­sa­tion: the most mean­ing­ful con­tri­bu­tions she makes are of­ten the ones that come with­out a pay cheque.

“As a teacher, I cer­tain­ly en­joy de­liv­er­ing cur­ricu­lum and shar­ing my knowl­edge, but what tru­ly ful­fils me is the op­por­tu­ni­ty to make mean­ing­ful im­pacts in oth­ers’ lives,” she said.

“Be­yond the les­son plans and aca­d­e­m­ic con­tent, I cher­ish those mo­ments when I can pro­vide guid­ance, in­spire con­fi­dence, or sim­ply be present for a per­son who needs sup­port.

“The con­nec­tions I form and the pos­i­tive in­flu­ence I can have on oth­ers–whether in my fam­i­ly, class­room, or com­mu­ni­ty – are what give my var­i­ous roles their deep­est sig­nif­i­cance. I be­lieve that the re­la­tion­ships we build and the dif­fer­ence we make in oth­ers’ lives are ul­ti­mate­ly what mat­ters most.”

It’s this heart­felt per­spec­tive that fu­els her pas­sion, turn­ing every­day in­ter­ac­tions in­to op­por­tu­ni­ties to up­lift and em­pow­er. For Ab­dul­lah, teach­ing is more than a job—it’s a call­ing shaped by com­pas­sion, pur­pose, and a deep com­mit­ment to mak­ing a dif­fer­ence.

Ab­dul­lah joined the Is­lam­ic Ladies So­cial and Cul­tur­al As­so­ci­a­tion (ILSCA) in 2018.

“I start­ed vol­un­teer­ing to help es­tab­lish their first out­reach pro­gramme,” she said. “Pri­or to this, I had been work­ing with a sub­group with­in the Caribbean Mus­lim Net­work (CMN) where I was fo­cused on de­vel­op­ing fam­i­ly out­reach ini­tia­tives.

“A fel­low CMN mem­ber I recog­nised the align­ment be­tween my vi­sion and ILSCA’s mis­sion and sug­gest­ed a col­lab­o­ra­tion. Giv­en that ILSCA had been a well-es­tab­lished or­gan­i­sa­tion since 1971, while our group was rel­a­tive­ly new, we saw tremen­dous val­ue in part­ner­ing with such an ex­pe­ri­enced or­gan­i­sa­tion.

“We em­braced the op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn from their es­tab­lished foun­da­tion while con­tribut­ing our fresh ideas and en­er­gy to­ward com­mon goals. This part­ner­ship al­lowed me to grow sig­nif­i­cant­ly, cre­at­ing a re­la­tion­ship that con­tin­ues to this day.”

Ab­dul­lah’s pas­sion for so­cial work has been a con­stant thread through­out her life, be­gin­ning in her teenage years when she worked with the Is­lam­ic Re­source So­ci­ety and RAP­PORT as a peer coun­sel­lor.

“Since then, I have con­sis­tent­ly sought op­por­tu­ni­ties to make a pos­i­tive im­pact in this sphere,” she added.

“My de­ci­sion to join ILSCA came af­ter col­lab­o­rat­ing with them on the out­reach pro­gramme. Wit­ness­ing first-hand how their fam­i­ly spon­sor­ship ini­tia­tive cre­at­ed mean­ing­ful change in the lives of en­tire fam­i­lies deeply res­onat­ed with me. The ex­pe­ri­ence con­firmed that ILSCA’s val­ues and ap­proach aligned per­fect­ly with my per­son­al val­ues and pro­fes­sion­al as­pi­ra­tions.”

Short­ly af­ter com­plet­ing that first out­reach pro­gramme, she be­came an of­fi­cial mem­ber of ILSCA.

“I joined be­cause I not on­ly be­lieved in their work but al­so felt com­pelled to con­tribute more di­rect­ly to their ef­forts,” Ab­dul­lah added.

“In 2019, I be­came a mem­ber of the ex­ec­u­tive, per­form­ing the du­ties of sec­re­tary, and I have re­mained work­ing with them since then. I now per­form the du­ties of as­sis­tant trea­sur­er. ILSCA’s holis­tic ap­proach to sup­port­ing fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties rep­re­sent­ed ex­act­ly the kind of im­pact­ful so­cial work I had al­ways want­ed to be part of.”

For her, the work has been “ab­solute­ly ful­fill­ing.”

“Peo­ple of­ten ask how I man­age my time be­tween be­ing a ded­i­cat­ed moth­er, which I con­sid­er to be one of my most im­por­tant roles, teach­ing, and ac­tive vol­un­teerism,” she said.

“My mo­ti­va­tion stems from the be­lief that we were placed on this earth to do our ab­solute best and to be the change we wish to see in the world. My ded­i­ca­tion is guid­ed by the Prophet Muham­mad’s (peace be up­on him) ha­dith: ‘The best of peo­ple are those who are most ben­e­fi­cial to oth­ers’.

“Find­ing ful­fil­ment in my work comes from know­ing I don’t mere­ly speak about what needs to be done; I ac­tive­ly work to­ward it. This al­lows me to serve as a pos­i­tive role mod­el for my daugh­ters, stu­dents and those I in­ter­act with while em­body­ing the Is­lam­ic val­ue of good deeds that the Qur’an con­sis­tent­ly em­pha­sis­es in vers­es like Surah Al-Asr (103:1-3), which teach­es us that suc­cess comes through faith, good deeds, and en­cour­ag­ing oth­ers to­ward truth and pa­tience. Through this work, I find pur­pose in liv­ing out these teach­ings dai­ly.”

Ab­dul­lah con­tin­ues to be a proud mem­ber of ILSCA, which con­tin­ues to em­pow­er through ser­vice.

“One of our core mis­sions is to serve fam­i­lies in need while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly build­ing their ca­pac­i­ty for self-suf­fi­cien­cy,” she said.

“We don’t sim­ply pro­vide as­sis­tance; we hope to cre­ate path­ways for gen­uine em­pow­er­ment. What tru­ly dis­tin­guish­es our work is our com­mit­ment to help­ing each in­di­vid­ual in our pro­grammes achieve their full po­ten­tial. We view our­selves as a foun­da­tion for growth rather than a per­ma­nent sup­port sys­tem.

“The suc­cess of our ap­proach is ev­i­dent in the out­comes we have wit­nessed. Many of our spon­sored stu­dents have flour­ished aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly, po­si­tion­ing them­selves to soon stand in­de­pen­dent­ly.”

The trans­for­ma­tion from de­pen­den­cy to self-re­liance ex­em­pli­fies ILSCA’s mis­sion.