Melis­sa Doughtyand Renu­ka Singh

Busi­ness­man Is­sa Nicholas, 79, one of five re­cip­i­ents of the na­tion's sec­ond high­est award, the Cha­co­nia Medal (Gold), said he was "very proud, very grate­ful and very hap­py" for the ho­n­our.Nicholas, who has been liv­ing in T&T for the past 64 years and saw the na­tion tran­si­tion to In­de­pen­dence, said it was the first na­tion­al recog­ni­tion he had been giv­en for his work.

The well-known hote­lier, who owns Nicholas Tow­ers in down­town Port-of-Spain, is al­so as­so­ci­at­ed with the Radis­son Ho­tel, for­mer­ly Cap­i­tal Plaza, on Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain.Mario Als, broth­er of for­mer trade union­ist and com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist, Michael Als, said the fam­i­ly and the ex­ec­u­tive of the Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers' Union wel­comed the Cha­co­nia Medal (Sil­ver) he had been award­ed posthu­mous­ly.

Als found­ed the union, which was then called the Bank and Gen­er­al Work­ers' Union, in April 1974. He served as its pres­i­dent gen­er­al for 12 years. He al­so found­ed the To­co Foun­da­tion which has been a lead­ing force in the de­vel­op­ment of that rur­al com­mu­ni­ty. He died last De­cem­ber af­ter a long ill­nessT­wo of Als' chil­dren, daugh­ters Keisha and Kali­fa, will be on hand to ac­cept the award at the cer­e­mo­ny at Queen's Hall this evening.

Dr Daphne Phillips, for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Gen­der Af­fairs, has been award­ed the Medal for the De­vel­op­ment of Women (Gold)."I feel very much elat­ed and ho­n­oured to know that the work I have done is be­ing recog­nised," she said

As a min­is­ter, Phillips played a key role in pass­ge of The Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Bill (No.2) and the Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Bill, 1999. In 2010, Phillips pub­licly en­dorsed cur­rent Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in her bid to be­come po­lit­i­cal leader of the UNC.