Sabga’s lifelong enduring lesson: Never give up
(Trinidad Guardian) With the passing of Dr Anthony Norman Sabga, ORTT, at age 94, the nation has lost perhaps the last of the generation of men and women of will and determination, who created and shaped the independent state of Trinidad & Tobago in ways which will define it in the 21st century.
Sabga was born in 1923 in Syria and came here in 1930, riding a global wave of migration which continued through the 20th century. He began his life in humble circumstances, living in rented rooms on Nelson Street in Port-of-Spain, just off Marine Square (now the Brian Lara Promenade). The family comprised his two brothers, George and Solomon, two sisters, Jamily and Zariffi, and parents. His father had managed to open a small haberdashery on Queen Street in Port-ofSpain, NS Sabga & Sons.
As a boy, Anthony went to school where he fared badly because of the language barrier and a learning disability (dyslexia). At age 12, his father was forced to return to Syria and Anthony was given the responsibility of running the shop. It was a momentous turn of events.
At the time, he was mentored by the men who would become giants in the professional and commercial worlds: Cyril Duprey, AA Hodgkinson and one of the Kirpalanis. He was also helped by one Richard Brathwaite, a salesman who saw potential in the store and turned it away from the retail trade and into an agency business. In addition to business mentorship, Brathwaite also ensured the young man was tutored and educated.
This was in many ways the defining moment of the young Sabga’s life: all his further business ventures followed the pattern. They were all collaborative, involving expertise from a varied group of people; they were centered in a family enterprise; and they were all entrepreneurial in nature, never depending on or desiring more than the freedom to exist in an environment which allowed their operation.