The quar­tet of Meris­sa Aguilleira and Navin Stew­art (for­mer crick­eters), Phillip Fras­er (teacher and foot­ball ad­min­is­tra­tor), and Rhon­da Michelle Jones (com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice and crick­et) were among the 65 na­tion­als who were ho­n­oured and recog­nised for their con­tri­bu­tion in their re­spec­tive spheres at a gala cer­e­mo­ny held at the Pres­i­dent’s House, Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

Aguilleira, a for­mer West In­dies and T&T women’s cap­tain, and To­ba­go-born Stew­art have been ho­n­oured in the field of sport (crick­et) with the Hum­ming­bird Gold Medal, while Fras­er, a for­mer San Juan North Sec­ondary teacher and school foot­ball team man­ag­er with San Juan Jabloteh club, along with his work in ed­u­ca­tion and sport, had the ho­n­our of the Hum­ming­bird Gold Sil­ver, while Jones, a teacher and crick­et um­pire, had the Hum­ming­bird Sil­ver Medal be­stowed up­on her for un­wa­ver­ing com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice and her ded­i­cat­ed con­tri­bu­tion to sport.

Name: Meris­sa Aguilleira

Sphere: Sport (Crick­et)

Job Sta­tus: Team Man­ag­er West In­dies Un­der 19

For­mer West In­dies and T&T women’s cap­tain Meris­sa Aguilleira be­gan play­ing crick­et at age eight in her rur­al com­mu­ni­ty of Mara­cas Vil­lage, Moru­ga. In 2002, Aguilleira was se­lect­ed to rep­re­sent the T&T Un­der-23 team, earn­ing a place on the se­nior team in 2005.

In 2016, Aguilleira was part of the first West In­dies Women’s Crick­et Team to win a World Cup cham­pi­onship, and be­came the first West In­dies Women’s crick­eter to be grant­ed hon­orary life mem­ber­ship at the Maryle­bone Crick­et Club. 

Name: Rhon­da Michelle Jones

Sphere: Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vice and Sports

Job Sta­tus: Teacher 1 Pri­ma­ry

Rhon­da Michelle Jones is a teacher and a na­tion­al crick­et um­pire.

Through lob­by­ing var­i­ous sports or­gan­i­sa­tions and pri­vate busi­ness­es, she was able to ob­tain sport­ing equip­ment to al­low her teams to im­prove their train­ing and to give youths who were un­able to pur­chase the nec­es­sary equip­ment, the op­por­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in the sport.

Some of her no­table mentees in­clude play­ers who have rep­re­sent­ed var­i­ous teams at na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al lev­els in­clud­ing the na­tion­al team and the West In­dies women’s crick­et team. Jones con­tin­ues to cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for the young peo­ple of T&T.

Name: Phillip Fras­er

Sphere: Ed­u­ca­tion and Sport

Job Sta­tus: Di­rec­tor of San Juan Jabloteh Sports Club

Phillip Fras­er served as a ded­i­cat­ed Teacher at the Tabaquite Com­pos­ite, and San Juan North Sec­ondary Schools.

He co­or­di­nat­ed all foot­ball at El Do­ra­do Sec­ondary School from 1999-2018. Dur­ing his tenure they won three Na­tion­al ti­tles.

Fras­er has served as Chair­man of the Sport Com­mit­tee at San Juan Jabloteh and has been a Mem­ber and Di­rec­tor of San Juan Jabloteh Sports Club since 1998, and was on the Ex­ec­u­tive Board of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (T&TFA) from 1999 to 2000 and is the del­e­gat­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive of San Juan Jabloteh Sports Lim­it­ed at all Gen­er­al meet­ings of the Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion.

Name: Navin Stew­art

Sphere: Sport (Crick­et)

Job Sta­tus: Ath­let­ics De­vel­op­ment Of­fi­cer TTSport

Navin Stew­art made his re­gion­al crick­et de­but at age 25 at the Stan­dard Twen­ty20 Crick­et tour­na­ment and went on to rep­re­sent T&T at sev­er­al re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ments. His ca­reer high­lights in­clude play­ing in the Cham­pi­ons League Twen­ty20 Tour­na­ment in In­dia in 2009, and for var­i­ous fran­chis­es in­clud­ing the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors and Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents in the Caribbean Pre­mier League. Re­cent­ly, Stew­art was se­lect­ed for the SAMP Army Crick­et team and com­pet­ed in sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ments in Sri Lan­ka, In­dia, South Africa and across var­i­ous states in the USA.