Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Mar 25, 2012 News
Pull Quote: “I will always remain honest, helpful and kind throughout my life. The more you give, the more you receive. I always say, you must always share love…always share love– that is the key for everything and not only say that you are sharing love, but do it in action.”
By Leon Suseran
Joseph Alfanso “Sir Joey” Torrezao is a beloved, trusted and well-known member of his community of
Rose Hall Town, Corentyne. He has earned a name for himself due to his compassion, works of charity and deep love and care for those around him. He has inspired many, and every day he lives to see that inspiration bear fruit in someone’s life, whom he has touched over the years.
Joseph is a teacher, a humanitarian, a husband, father, grandfather and avid church-goer. And just as how his house is nestled and hidden behind the Demerara Bank Rose Hall Branch, so are his many works of compassion and contributions, some of which we will be highlighting here.
He was born on March 19, 1958, at Rose Hall Town, to Betty and Cecil Torrezao. He grew up in a poor family, with five sisters: Ursulla, Rita, Barbara, Joy and his twin, Juliet; two brothers, Moses and Peter, his parents and his maternal grandmother. They lived in a small one-bedroom home and they accommodated relatives and friends as well in their small home.
“We slept on the floor because there was one bed”, he recalled. “Most importantly, we were extremely happy and were brought up in love”, he emphasized.
“My dad used to be a bicycle repairer and my mom, a market vendor selling greens. I could remember when I used to fetch pumpkins, boulangers, eddoes, squashes, tomatoes, peppers and other stuff, using a ladies’ bicycle. If anyone stood on the other side of the road, they would think that the bicycle was moving by itself. I was shielded by two bags of boulangers with the baskets of tomatoes on top”, he reflected.
While reminiscing, he vividly remembered having to wake up at four o’ clock in the morning to attend primary school. He also assisted his father in the repair shop.
“I used to help patch the punctured tubes and a few other minor stuff. Sometimes, my father dragged me along to the backdam to catch fish or birds. We were really hustling. We used to sell clothes that my mom and eldest sister sewed, and at one time, we sold crushed-ice in the market.”
Torrezao also revealed that at one time the family lived in several rented houses and moved from place to place. “The one- bedroom house that I mentioned though was the last”. “We struggled and bought it along with the land and today, that house is replaced with a bigger one (his current home)”.
Young Joseph attended St Francis Xavier Roman Catholic School at the Portuguese Quarters, Port Mourant, after which he attended the Lower Corentyne Government Secondary School, as it was called then, in Rose Hall Town.
After graduating in 1975, he began a career in teaching, at a private school on the Corentyne called National High School. There he taught English and Mathematics. In 1976, the year when all schools were taken over by the government, he began what would be a very lengthy career at the Corentyne Comprehensive Secondary School from September 1976 to July 1997. He worked as a Temporary Qualified Master (TQM) and later became a Senior Master.
He also worked with the New Amsterdam Distance Education Programme in connection with the University of Guyana at Turkeyen.
“I was teaching English ‘A’ and staff from Turkeyen usually trained us in the teaching of English. This was done from 1993 to 1997. In 1981, with four other colleagues from Comprehensive School, we attended New Amsterdam Teachers’ In-Service Training for one year only, since we could not afford transportation”, he said. At the same period, in 1982, his relatives migrated to Canada, but he would not leave his own family, he noted, since at the time he had a wife and two “beautiful kids” to maintain. “It was not easy”, he recalled.
He got married to his childhood lover, his neighbour, Devika.
“We were happily blessed with two most beautiful, intelligent and wonderful kids, Joshua and Christina”. “To marry somebody who you understand; who is there with you in hard times, when you’re struggling… is there with me all the time; it was great.”
A devout Roman Catholic and church leader at his parish church, St Francis Xavier R.C. Church at Port Mourant, Torrezao – with the encouragement of Fathers Deryck Maitland and Joseph Dias, on May 1, 2005 – formed the St Martin de Porres Society, an international charitable organisation and humanitarian group attached to the Catholic Church.
Torrezao was nominated as its President, and he began to oversee the execution of numerous charitable and humanitarian works where the poor became the central focus.
“We visit the ill in their homes and pray and offer assistance in clothing, food or even money; give monthly stipends to at least twelve needy persons; hold Christmas parties for the poor; share food hampers to very poor homes and we give items that we see necessary when doing visitation.”
Torrezao would raise all this money to assist persons by holding raffles and other fundraisers and would spearhead the mission to solicit donations from corporate entities who, knowing and seeing the work he does, readily cooperate with him and make numerous donations.
His role model is his former priest, Jesuit Fr Joseph Dias, who has since returned to India, and whom he said inspired him to give up alcohol and turn to a life in the church.
“He changed my way of thinking and I really admired him. Before I went to church and so on…I fell into the groups whereby persons were drinking alcohol and then after a while I went to church one day while Fr Dias was giving a sermon and his words touched me a lot and from that day, I stopped drinking completely. I don’t want to see any drop of alcohol. I never smoked too.”
Joseph left teaching at Comprehensive School in 1997 since he started a new “lucrative” job at the Demerara Distillers Limited (DDL) in New Amsterdam, but held on to it for a short while since it became too demanding and being a ‘family man’, he wanted to spend more quality time with his family.
Rather than returning to teaching, he began to hold his own little classes in Rose Hall Town and wanted to give back to society and his community at the same time, while giving individual attention to children.
Joseph began a small school, whereby he taught evening classes of English and Business in 1997.
“I continued to mould the young children. All Catholic children received free classes. Widows paid half-price for their children. If situations at home were worse, the students did not pay.”
Family, friends and relatives are also offered free lessons. Joseph assists in buying calculators for those who cannot afford, and in some cases, uniforms.
“I know a lot of families who struggle and they need the lessons because they want the boost, from Forms 1 to 5,” he said thoughtfully.
His daughter-in-law, a UG lecturer, as well as other teachers in the area, assist him with teaching the kids. And what is better encouragement than to have your students excel highly in the subjects and exams. “I am very proud because if, for instance, you go in the banks on the Corentyne, you will see a lot of my students.”
Last August, he visited New York for the first time. There, he met some old friends who were Catholics and being the person who always thinks about ways to make things and situations better, Joseph related the needs of his church and some works that they wanted to do at the priest’s house in the compound. “Immediately, they (his friends) were willing to help. In fact, they sent seventy-one thousand Guyana dollars for our last Christmas feeding.”
“I will always remain honest, helpful and kind throughout my life. The more you give, the more you receive. I always say, you must always share love…always share love– that is the key for everything and not only say that you are sharing love, but do it in action– the Bible tells us so– show the love.”
“I will always help, no matter what and sometimes, our homes here, we have some drug addicts and other people they push aside, they come by my gate and we give them food and so… my wife helps with that and we help them a lot. We give them food and money. People tend to put those people apart, but you are killing them more. It’s not good. We accept them and advise them to stop doing what they are doing. We give them clothes too.”
“I have no regrets, because I handle all situations humbly. I have no enemies.”
Torrezao is loved and respected in his community and family circle. He is quite satisfied with his years of life and all that he has accomplished.
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