Five women were award­ed on Wednes­day when the As­so­ci­a­tion of Fe­male Ex­ec­u­tives of Trinidad and To­ba­go (AFETT) held its Women of In­flu­ence Awards cer­e­mo­ny at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s.

Spir­it of AFETT award

Cheryl Di­an Sue Wing

Sue Wing is a vi­sion­ary en­tre­pre­neur, im­age con­sul­tant, women’s ad­vo­cate, train­er, au­thor of four books, and in­spi­ra­tional and trans­for­ma­tion­al speak­er. She is al­so the founder and CEO of ‘With Women in Mind’.

Sue Wing has been a keynote speak­er at lo­cal schools, church­es, and in­ter­na­tion­al con­fer­ences, in­clud­ing the dig­i­tal pre­sen­ter at the Black and In­flu­en­tial Con­fer­ence in Feb­ru­ary 2019, the Suc­cess Women’s Con­fer­ence in Sep­tem­ber 2019, the Be Beau­ti­ful Con­fer­ence in At­lanta in 2019, and most re­cent­ly the WYN glob­al sum­mit in No­vem­ber 2023. She is an out­stand­ing so­cial out­reach work­er who is ded­i­cat­ed to help­ing women and girls el­e­vate their lives and live to their full po­ten­tial.

AFETT Busi­ness Pi­o­neer

Cavelle Joseph-St Omar

Joseph-St Omar, pres­i­dent of the Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, is a glob­al­ly recog­nised hu­man re­sources ex­ec­u­tive with more than 20 years of ex­pe­ri­ence work­ing to ef­fec­tive­ly bal­ance big-pic­ture think­ing and strate­gic plan­ning with hands-on ex­e­cu­tion.

She was re­cent­ly elect­ed as the first pres­i­dent of the UWI Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness Alum­ni As­so­ci­a­tion and pro­vides over­all vol­un­teer lead­er­ship for all the ac­tiv­i­ties of the as­so­ci­a­tion. Joseph-St Omar is al­so the first pres­i­dent of the Caribbean In­sti­tute for Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment, reg­is­tered in Ja­maica. In Feb­ru­ary 2012016, Joseph-St Omar was recog­nised as one of the top 100 Glob­al HR pro­fes­sion­als in the World HRD Con­gress.

In May 2023, she was recog­nised with a re­gion­al HR award by the Caribbean So­ci­ety for Hu­man Re­source Pro­fes­sion­als for her con­tri­bu­tions to HR in the Caribbean.

AFETT Young Fe­male Leader

Jásh­er De Gannes

De Gannes is a grad­u­ate of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies with ho­n­ours in the field of law. At 22, she has served as a na­tion­al, re­gion­al, and Com­mon­wealth youth par­lia­men­tar­i­an.

From 2020 to 2021, she served as the youth area rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Canaan/Bon Ac­cord while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly lead­ing the To­ba­go Youth As­sem­bly as the Youth Chief Sec­re­tary. De Gannes’ pas­sion for help­ing peo­ple has led to the birth of her non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion, known as Di­vine­ly Com­mis­sioned In­ter­na­tion­al. This or­gan­i­sa­tion sup­ports chil­dren, adults, and se­nior cit­i­zens across T&T and al­so hosts an an­nu­al youth con­fer­ence in To­ba­go, which pro­vides spir­i­tu­al, men­tal, and emo­tion­al sup­port to young peo­ple who at­tend.

Each Sat­ur­day, De Gannes leads a ra­dio pro­gramme on ISAAC 98.1FM that en­gages youths.

AFETT Na­tion­al Spir­it

Re­an­na Har­ri­lal

Har­ri­lal is a renowned au­thor, pa­tient ad­vo­cate, and NGO leader.

In 2022, her out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the com­mu­ni­ty were recog­nised when she was award­ed the pres­ti­gious Hum­ming­bird Gold Medal in the sphere of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, ed­u­ca­tion, and em­pow­er­ment.

In 2015, she was award­ed the Na­tion­al Youth Al­ly Award for her role in in­creas­ing and deep­en­ing aware­ness of lu­pus. Har­ri­lal loves Je­sus, and as a be­liev­er, she con­tin­ues to serve oth­ers through The Voice of Lu­pus Foun­da­tion.

AFETT So­cial En­tre­pre­neur

Shi­han Mar­va Han­ni­fa John-Lo­gan

John-Lo­gan is, among oth­er things, a so­cial work­er, me­di­a­tor, youth ad­vo­cate, men­tor, con­sul­tant, mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­er, mar­tial arts prac­ti­tion­er, and so­cial change agent. She has been the re­cip­i­ent of many awards lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, in­clud­ing the Hum­ming­bird Medal-Gold 2023 for Loy­al and De­vot­ed Ser­vice in Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment in T&T, the Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice–Youth Men­tor and Ad­vo­cate Spe­cial Award 2023, and the In­ter­na­tion­al Woman of Courage Award. John-Lo­gan has al­so been in­duct­ed in­to the USA Mar­tial Arts Hall of Fame for us­ing mar­tial arts as a ve­hi­cle to em­pow­er youths.