Dr Safeeya Mo­hammed

guardian.wemagazine@gmail.com

“There is no lim­it to what we, as women, can ac­com­plish.”

- Michelle Oba­ma

Leav­ing an in­deli­ble mark on our land­scape of T&T, three ex­cep­tion­al women were ho­n­oured for their out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to so­ci­ety by the In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Fo­rum of Trinidad and To­ba­go (IWFTT).

With the ethos, “To unite, in­spire and cel­e­brate ac­com­plished women, to ad­vance ex­em­plary lead­er­ship, while learn­ing from and sup­port­ing each oth­er, em­pow­er­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of women lead­ers,” IWFTT seeks to col­lec­tive­ly fos­ter fu­ture women lead­ers.

In an en­ter­tain­ing evening of cel­e­bra­tion, the IWFTT host­ed its sec­ond an­nu­al In­spi­ra­tional Women Awards Gala at the Hy­att Re­gency on Sep­tem­ber 19.

Own­ing your unique sto­ry

The event com­menced with a warm wel­come from An­na-Maria Gar­cia-Brooks, vice pres­i­dent of the IWFTT and chair of the In­spi­ra­tional Women Awards Com­mit­tee, who in her open­ing re­marks, em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of the oc­ca­sion as a trib­ute to de­ter­mi­na­tion, vi­sion, and un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment. She stressed the pow­er of al­low­ing one­self to be known and heard, stand­ing for what is right, and em­pha­sised the sig­nif­i­cance of own­ing one’s unique sto­ry and us­ing their au­then­tic voice for good.

She not­ed that the awardees, Dr Di­ana Ma­habir-Wy­att, Prof Rose-Marie Belle An­toine and Ani­ka Plow­den-Corentin, used their au­then­tic voic­es, skills and tal­ents to im­prove so­ci­ety, while demon­strat­ing the un­yield­ing spir­it that tran­scends bound­aries and pro­pels women to re­mark­able achieve­ments.

Glob­al net­work of IWF

Joanne Salazar, pres­i­dent of IWFTT, pro­vid­ed a re­flec­tion on the jour­ney of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, which be­gan in 2014 and has since grown in­to a for­mi­da­ble com­mu­ni­ty of women lead­ers from di­verse pro­fes­sions and sec­tors. She high­light­ed the glob­al net­work of the In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Fo­rum, com­pris­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 8,000 ac­com­plished women lead­ers across 34 coun­tries. This net­work pro­vides unique op­por­tu­ni­ties for per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al growth and fos­ters a sup­port­ive com­mu­ni­ty ded­i­cat­ed to ad­vanc­ing women’s lead­er­ship and gen­der equal­i­ty.

Salazar em­pha­sised that the core pur­pose of the awards gala was to recog­nise and cel­e­brate ac­com­plished women lead­ers who have scaled great heights, bro­ken bar­ri­ers, and shat­tered ceil­ings. She em­pha­sised that these women were bea­cons of hope, as well as role mod­els, demon­strat­ing the pow­er of ac­tion-ori­ent­ed lead­er­ship. “In an ever-evolv­ing world fac­ing chal­lenges like cli­mate change and so­cial in­equal­i­ty, the need for fe­male lead­er­ship is para­mount,” said Salazar.

The 2023 IWFTT In­spi­ra­tional Women Award Re­cip­i­ents were:

Dr Ma­habir-Wy­att, founder of the Shel­ter for bat­tered women and chil­dren and coura­geous voice in the de­fence of fam­i­lies who suf­fer abuse, re­ceived the In­spi­ra­tional Cham­pi­on of Women Award.

Prof Rose-Marie Belle An­toine, Prin­ci­pal of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies was award­ed the In­spi­ra­tional Ad­vo­cate Award for her re­lent­less work in the es­tab­lish­ment of the In­ter­na­tion­al Hu­man Rights Clin­ic, unit­ing acad­e­mia and ac­tivism to ad­dress var­i­ous press­ing so­cial is­sues, in­clud­ing mi­grants, in­dige­nous peo­ples, and gen­der jus­tice.

Ani­ka Plow­den-Corentin, vi­su­al artist, and founder of Cho­sen Hands, a Non-Prof­it Or­gan­i­sa­tion, was the first re­cip­i­ent of the In­spi­ra­tional Emerg­ing Leader Award, which ac­knowl­edges and ho­n­ours a young woman whose im­pact­ful work, though not wide­ly recog­nised or pub­li­cised, is mak­ing a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence.

This fes­tive event was made pos­si­ble by the gen­er­ous sup­port of the cor­po­rate sec­tor, with plat­inum spon­sor­ship pro­vid­ed by Re­pub­lic Bank Lim­it­ed, First Cit­i­zens, Phoenix Park Gas Proces­sors, and bpTT. Gold and bronze part­ner­ships as well as fi­nan­cial and oth­er con­tri­bu­tions were made by nu­mer­ous oth­er top com­pa­nies in T&T, all mak­ing the gala a mem­o­rable and re­sound­ing suc­cess.

About IWFTT

We be­lieve that the in­tractable chal­lenges we face can on­ly be solved if women at­tain their equal place and sta­tus – if women share their di­verse per­spec­tives, con­tribute dif­fer­ent styles of lead­er­ship and present new so­lu­tions on­ly they can de­vel­op.

* We be­lieve the po­ten­tial for women is un­lim­it­ed and op­por­tu­ni­ties should be, as well.

* We be­lieve an in­vest­ment in women is an in­vest­ment in the fu­ture.

* We be­lieve that our pow­er lies in our uni­ty.

* We be­lieve in trans­fer­ring knowl­edge and mo­men­tum to the lead­ers of to­mor­row to im­prove our world – to en­er­gise, de­mand and ac­cel­er­ate the im­per­a­tive of change.

* We con­nect and cul­ti­vate long-last­ing friend­ships – we sup­port each oth­er in an en­vi­ron­ment built up­on trust.

* We el­e­vate the next gen­er­a­tion to­day to be­come lead­ers to­mor­row.

That’s why we cham­pi­on equal­i­ty.