Trinis are this long Easter week-end enjoying the white, sandy beaches and clear, blue-green waters of the sister isle, Tobago. But how many of them know about the Tobago Campus of the Trinidad & Tobago Hospitality & Tourism Institute at Mount St George.
Located on a hilly mound at Blenheim, from which on a clear day the north coast of Trinidad is very visible across the ocean, the school caters for 250 students, but currently has a roll of about one hundred, which does not in any way prevent Agnes Webbe, the very determined director, and her staff of twenty-three from fulfilling the school’s role in the community.
In 1991, Webbe gave up her post as head of the Trinidad campus of the school at Chaguaramas, where she had worked for eight years, and retired to the quiet of Tobago, working as a consultant in training with the Caribbean Tourism organistion "up the islands", in customer service, management skills and tourism generally.
"I was on the Tobago Board of Governors and was literally browbeaten into accepting this position in Tobago. Carlos Dillon and Allan Clovis (managers of leading hotels) approached me as to whether I would be interested in the position. My answer was: no I am not going back into organised work. I do not want to be harnessed into that again."
Bill Aguiton, retired general manager of the Trinidad Hilton, came at Agnes, who again declined. They made a positive offer, she discussed it with her family who thought she should not go back into this stressful type of work. But Clovis was convinced Webbe was the only person to do the job. She had been a successful head of Trinidad, and Tobago needed somebody like Agnes Webbe with experience and knowledge to get something up and running.
Eventually Webbe accepted the challenge. "It was something that I always dreamt about. In fact I was appointed chairperson of the task force to set up a hotel school in Tobago in 1988. That report was done that there should be a hotel school in Tobago but nothing came of it at that time."
It was not until September 8,1997, that the school opened its doors at the site which was formerly a youth camp in Mt St George, "after a decision by the Executive Council of the Tobago House of Assembly to give us here as a site for the Tobago Hotel School. All buildings were here, we refurbished what was needed, cleaned the grounds, and put all our equipment in place."
Webbe, a Trinidadian by birth, had lived in England for over 23 years, was trained in the administration of hospitality, tourism and education, at North London University, and in Birmingham where she taught for eight years.
Since most of her formative years were spent in England, when the Trinidad job came along, she found it a very difficult decision to make, but felt at that point in her career that she wanted to give something back to the land of her birth. "I had to consider my husband, Howard, and two daughters, one a qualified solicitor and the other a quality assurance and logistics major working with the United Kingdom Sports Council."
The Tobago school, with a staff of eight full time faculty members and seven part time, boasts exactly the same three-semester system, and curriculum, like Trinidad, with additions as because of Tobago’s tourism there is a little more involvment in tour guiding. A final exam leads to either a certificate or associate degree. Students spend two semesters in-house, and one practicum into hotels as far as Jamaica and Barbados. Student fees amount to approximately $7.500 per year. There are also many short courses, and evening programmes to 9 p.m.
The very Friday I visited the campus, two Canadian volunteer advisers, Allan and Lydia Sorflaten, who had been loaned to the campus by the Canadian International Services (Canadian Volunteer Advisers to Business) were saying goodbye. The couple had spent six weeks setting up an agricultural project on the campus using the "sou sou" concept where groups of five youngsters are assigned a selected site to plant one vegetable crop, and when they are finished will go from site to site and help each other. This project was initiated by the sou sou "cocoa" steering committee which is committed to agriculture, with Webbe as chairman.
"We are focusing on young people, what we are trying to do is to get them to go back to the land as a means of improving their lot and doing something positive for themselves. They plant seedlings, water, prune and harvest, and have produced tomatoes, sweet peppers, broccoli, and are looking at selling to hotels, restaurants and guest houses. We are hoping that the Tobago community will look at this pilot project and maybe take it to their villages and organise the same system. It has shown quite clearly that it can work."
Tasty three-course meals are prepared and served by students at a minimal cost in the school’s restaurant daily, at lunch time, under the supervision of an accomplished chef, Rawle Greenidge, formerly of the Holiday Inn. Drinks can be purchased from a licensed bar. The students will cater for outside functions.
Webbe, president elect of the Tobago Soroptomist Club, sees housing and accommodation in what will be a three star hotel on the campus. "We are just waiting for the funds, and hope to build student accommodation also on the 99 acre property, of which the campus has leased about thirty acres."
Webbe’s aim is to bring the best minds she can to the Institute: "Our goal is an institute of excellence and in order to become excellent we need to have excellence in discipline, commitment, knowledge, we must fit these criteria."
For Agnes Webbe "the load is heavy, but the only way you can succeed in life is that you have got to be a committed person. We must lead by example and be dedicated to what we do."
"I love to be with kids, they need direction and it must come from exemplars, we have got to be on the cutting edge, we have to be out front, guide them how best to use the information they get. We are teaching them how to manage things so they must look to us for this kind of help otherwise we really cannot justify our existence" says the director who admits "I get very passionate about what I do."
The Campus never closes "we teach right through because we have a core of young people who have six to eight weeks vacation, and from our first year said, hey how can we introduce these youngsters to what we do here."
One such way is an Education Fair for ages twelve and upwards, with a programme from 9 am to 12.30 p.m. every day, where they are exposed to tourism, German, French, Spanish, human and social behaviour, front office service, food preparation, tours, sports, tennis, windball cricket and more. "It’s a a kind of fun education and they love it" says Webbe.