This week, on Thurs­day 26 Oc­to­ber 2023, the grad­u­a­tion cer­e­monies of the St. Au­gus­tine Cam­pus of The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (The UWI) be­gin, and it will be the first time they are held at The UWI SPEC since the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

A re­lease from The UWI notes that grad­u­a­tion cer­e­monies will con­tin­ue—twice dai­ly at 10:00 am and 4:00 pm re­spec­tive­ly—un­til Sat­ur­day 28 Oc­to­ber at The UWI Sport and Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion Cen­tre (The UWI SPEC), St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus.

The theme for this year's cer­e­monies is "Root­ed. Ready. Ris­ing." in com­mem­o­ra­tion of The Uni­ver­si­ty’s 75th an­niver­sary.

Uni­ver­si­ty Chan­cel­lor, Mr. Robert Bermudez, will pre­side over all cer­e­monies.

“No­tably, these cer­e­monies take place at The UWI SPEC for the first time since the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic,” The UWI said. “Each cer­e­mo­ny will be streamed live on UWItv via its web­site https://uwitv.org/ and broad­cast on the Flow Evo tele­vi­sion chan­nels across the Caribbean, for friends, fam­i­ly and well-wish­ers that wish to view the pro­ceed­ings.”

The fol­low­ing is the sched­ule for this week’s grad­u­a­tion cer­e­monies at St Au­gus­tine:

● Thurs­day, Oc­to­ber 26… Fac­ul­ties of Sci­ence & Tech­nol­o­gy and Food & Agri­cul­ture at 10.00 am.  The Fac­ul­ties of En­gi­neer­ing & Law at 4.00 pm.

● Fri­day, Oc­to­ber 27… At 10 am, Fac­ul­ty of So­cial Sci­ences (Sur­names A – L) Un­der­grad­u­ate grad­uands on­ly; and all ALJGSB grad­uands on­ly (Sur­names A – Z).  At 4.00 pm, Fac­ul­ty of So­cial Sci­ences (Sur­names M – Z) Un­der­grad­u­ate grad­uands on­ly; and all post­grad­u­ate grad­uands from the Fac­ul­ty of So­cial Sci­ences, In­sti­tute for Gen­der & De­vel­op­ment Stud­ies, In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions, and the Sir Arthur Lewis In­sti­tute of So­cial & Eco­nom­ics Stud­ies (Sur­names A-Z).

● Sat­ur­day, Oc­to­ber 28… At 10.00 am, Fac­ul­ties of Hu­man­i­ties & Ed­u­ca­tion and Sport; and Fac­ul­ty of Med­ical Sci­ences at 4.00 pm.

Mean­while… Four­teen em­i­nent per­sons are to re­ceive hon­orary de­grees from The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (The UWI) dur­ing its up­com­ing Class of 2023 grad­u­a­tion cer­e­monies.  The be­stow­ing of awards be­gan on Oc­to­ber 7.

“The an­nu­al tra­di­tion of con­fer­ring hon­orary de­grees, which co­in­cides this year with the re­gion­al uni­ver­si­ty’s 75th ju­bilee cel­e­bra­tions will com­mem­o­rate the out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions made by these in­di­vid­u­als to their com­mu­ni­ties and the wider so­ci­ety,” The UWI ex­plained in an of­fi­cial state­ment which re­vealed the 2023 hon­orees.

The hon­orees will join hun­dreds of stu­dents across the Five Is­lands, Cave Hill, St Au­gus­tine, Mona, and Glob­al (for­mer­ly Open Cam­pus) cam­pus­es who are grad­u­at­ing and mark­ing the end of their stud­ies.

The fol­low­ing is the sched­ule for the 2023 cer­e­monies and the list of hon­orary grad­uands:

● Five Is­lands Cam­pus – Oc­to­ber 7

Sir Leroy ‘King Short Shirt’ Emanuel

● Cave Hill Cam­pus – Oc­to­ber 21

Ian Hick­ling

Al­i­son Hinds

Tr­isha Tan­nis

● St. Au­gus­tine Cam­pus – Oc­to­ber 26-28

Baroness Floel­la Ben­jamin, OM, DBE, DL

Heather Headley

Lawrence Scott

● Mona Cam­pus – No­vem­ber 3-4

Pro­fes­sor E. Dale Abel

The Hon. Las­celles A Chin (posthu­mous)

Hugh Beres­ford Ham­mond, OJ

Rachel Man­ley

Her Ex­cel­len­cy Au­drey Patrice Marks

● Glob­al Cam­pus (for­mer­ly Open Cam­pus) – No­vem­ber 11

Mon­sign­or Hon. Dr Patrick ‘Pa­ba’ An­tho­ny, SLC

The Right Ho­n­ourable Dame Janet Gwen­nett Bost­wick, CB, DBE

MORE ABOUT THE HON­ORARY GRAD­UANDS

● Sir Leroy ‘King Short Shirt’ Emanuel

Born and raised in the Point area in St. John's, An­tigua, Sir Leroy ‘King Short Shirt’ Emanuel, the "Monarch” is de­scribed as a colos­sal of a ca­lyp­son­ian. He first en­tered the ca­lyp­so are­na in 1962 and, since then, has pro­duced hun­dreds of qual­i­ty ca­lyp­sos, sev­er­al for fel­low ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, and is known main­ly for his cut­ting lyri­cal con­tent, sweet har­mo­ny, and smooth melo­di­ous voice.

King Short Shirt has won the Ca­lyp­so Com­pe­ti­tion 15 times in An­tigua and Bar­bu­da and was the first to ‘three-peat’ in the an­nu­al com­pe­ti­tion 1964, 1965, and 1966. He took the Caribbean Ca­lyp­so Com­pe­ti­tion crown sev­en times and has sev­en Road March Crowns un­der his belt. Some of his biggest hits in­clude Tourist Leg­go; Lu­cin­da; No­body Go Run me; Our Pledge; Lamen­ta­tion; Star Black; Run Shorty Run; In Spite Of All, and so many more.

He has been twice in­vit­ed by the Prime Min­is­ters of fel­low CARI­COM coun­tries to their In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions: Be­lize in 1981, where he per­formed A New Be­gin­ning, a song he wrote es­pe­cial­ly for the oc­ca­sion; and Saint Lu­cia in 2023.

Ca­lyp­so may be his pas­sion, but he has al­so trans­lat­ed his love of the craft and per­form­ing in­to busi­ness­es. In 1962, he opened Shorty's Beach Bar and Shorty's Glass Bot­tom Boats, fol­lowed eight years lat­er by a record shop, A & B Record.

● Ian Hick­ling

New Zealan­der Ian Hick­ling came to Bar­ba­dos via Er­itrea and Nepal.  Hold­er of a BSc in Cell Bi­ol­o­gy and Bio­chem­istry as well as an MSc in Bio­chem­istry from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Auck­land, he opened and still leads a com­mer­cial med­ical de­vice fac­to­ry with an em­ploy­ee team of 260 de­vel­ops and man­u­fac­tures in­traoc­u­lar lens­es. Twen­ty-six years lat­er, Lenstec is one of the lead­ing ex­port man­u­fac­tur­ers in Bar­ba­dos with man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nolo­gies and process­es de­signed and built in-house by Lenstec’s en­gi­neer­ing staff – many of whom are grad­u­ates of The UWI.

Its pro­pri­etary lens man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nolo­gies, in­clud­ing mi­cro-pre­ci­sion lath­es, mills, pol­ish­ing equip­ment, and moulds, en­able the com­pa­ny to pro­duce pre­mi­um lens­es with re­duced vari­abil­i­ty to help im­prove sur­gi­cal pre­dictabil­i­ty. Cur­rent­ly, more in­traoc­u­lar lens­es are made with Lenstec tech­nol­o­gy world­wide than any oth­er sys­tems.

As Lenstec’s Pres­i­dent, Mr. Hick­ling was in­vit­ed by Ex­port Bar­ba­dos to serve on the Life Sci­ences Over­sight Com­mit­tee to over­see the de­vel­op­ment of a life sci­ences in­dus­try in the coun­try, un­der the Bio-Is­land ini­tia­tive to de­vel­op Bar­ba­dos as a biotech­nol­o­gy hub in the re­gion, ex­port­ing to the world.

● Al­i­son Hinds

Al­i­son Hinds is a vi­tal el­e­ment on the re­gion­al mu­sic scene and a ma­jor force in the erup­tion of in­no­v­a­tive, ur­ban-in­flu­enced Caribbean-based mu­sic on which she has left an in­deli­ble foot­print.

When she is not per­form­ing, she is an ad­vo­cate for such caus­es as AIDS aware­ness, women’s rights, di­a­betes, and can­cer foun­da­tions as well as or­gan­i­sa­tions for dis­abled and phys­i­cal­ly chal­lenged chil­dren.

Born and raised in Eng­land un­til she was 11, she then moved to Bar­ba­dos where she found her love of Caribbean mu­sic like Ca­lyp­so and Reg­gae. At the ten­der age of 17, she be­came a lead vo­cal­ist for the band Square One which won mul­ti­ple awards with hits like Raga­muf­fin, Aye Aye Aye and Faluma. Af­ter form­ing her band, her most suc­cess­ful in­ter­na­tion­al song, Roll It Gal, peaked at #52 on the Bill­board R&B charts in 2006. The song has fea­tured in many Hol­ly­wood pro­duc­tions such as Grey’s Anato­my.

She is an ac­knowl­edged trail­blaz­er for women in the in­dus­try and 2014 saw her ap­point­ed Caribbean In­ter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Busi­ness and Pro­fes­sion­al Women Good­will Am­bas­sador. In 2018, Ms Hinds re­ceived the des­ig­na­tion ‘Bar­ba­dos Cul­tur­al Am­bas­sador’ from Prime Min­is­ter Fre­un­del Stu­art and joined Ri­han­na as the on­ly oth­er woman to be so des­ig­nat­ed. In that year al­so, the May­or of Brook­lyn recog­nised her out­stand­ing ca­reer and ser­vice to the Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty.

● Tr­isha Tan­nis

Mrs. Tr­isha Tan­nis, an ex­pe­ri­enced strate­gic fi­nance pro­fes­sion­al, is the Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of the Uni­com­er (Bar­ba­dos) Group – the first woman ap­point­ed to that of­fice with­in the Uni­com­er Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca Group.

A UWI alum­na, she holds a BSc (Hons) de­gree in ac­count­ing and is pro­fes­sion­al­ly qual­i­fied as a Char­tered Pro­fes­sion­al Ac­coun­tant of Cana­da. She is al­so a Fel­low of the Char­tered Gov­er­nance In­sti­tute of Cana­da and the In­sti­tute of Char­tered Ac­coun­tants of Bar­ba­dos.

Elect­ed un­op­posed to serve as Pres­i­dent of the Bar­ba­dos Cham­ber of Com­merce in May 2019, Mrs. Tan­nis ably steered the or­gan­i­sa­tion and worked with the Gov­ern­ment of Bar­ba­dos dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and the re­sult­ing lock­down. In 2021, she be­came the first woman to chair the Bar­ba­dos Pri­vate Sec­tor As­so­ci­a­tion. Un­der her lead­er­ship, the As­so­ci­a­tion worked with gov­ern­ment to sta­bilise the cost of ba­sic food items and stave off the in­fla­tion­ary ef­fects of the war in Ukraine and the glob­al sup­ply chain.

As a strate­gic part­ner of the Cave Hill Cam­pus strat­e­gy to dri­ve en­tre­pre­neur­ship and in­no­va­tion, she strength­ened pri­vate sec­tor en­gage­ment and co-or­gan­ised the in­au­gur­al UWI Pri­vate Sec­tor Fo­rum and Busi­ness Man­age­ment Think Tank in 2022.

● Baroness Floel­la Ben­jamin, OM, DBE, DL

Baroness Floel­la Karen Yu­nies Ben­jamin, OM, DBE, DL is a Trinida­di­an-British ac­tress, singer, pre­sen­ter, au­thor, busi­ness­woman, phil­an­thropist, and politi­cian. She has writ­ten over 30 books in­clud­ing the best­selling Com­ing to Eng­land which is now part of the UK Na­tion­al Cur­ricu­lum and cel­e­brates 53 years in the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try, re­ceiv­ing nu­mer­ous ac­co­lades.

A Spe­cial Life­time Achieve­ment awardee from the British Acad­e­my of Film and Tele­vi­sion Arts (BAF­TA), she was ap­point­ed Of­fi­cer of the Or­der of the British Em­pire in the 2001 New Year Ho­n­ours for ser­vices to broad­cast­ing.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Ex­eter award­ed her the hon­orary de­gree of Doc­tor of Let­ters (D.Litt. (Ex­on)) in 2005 for con­tri­bu­tions to the life in the Unit­ed King­dom. A year lat­er, Baroness Ben­jamin suc­ceed­ed Lord Alexan­der of Wee­don as Chan­cel­lor of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ex­eter. She al­so served as Pres­i­dent of the Eliz­a­beth R Com­mon­wealth Broad­cast­ing Fund and a Gov­er­nor of the Na­tion­al Film and Tele­vi­sion School.

She was ap­point­ed a Deputy Lieu­tenant of Greater Lon­don in 2008 and in 2010, she was in­tro­duced to the House of Lords as a life peer – the first ac­tress to be so ap­point­ed. Baroness Ben­jamin chaired the Win­drush Com­mem­o­ra­tion Com­mit­tee over­see­ing the cre­ation a Na­tion­al Win­drush Mon­u­ment.

In 2020, she was fea­tured in Pow­erlist, a pub­li­ca­tion of Britain’s Most In­flu­en­tial Peo­ple of African and African Caribbean Her­itage in the Unit­ed King­dom and was al­so ap­point­ed a Dame Com­man­der of the Or­der of the British Em­pire in the 2020 New Year Ho­n­ours for ser­vices to char­i­ty.

In 2022, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chester award­ed her the hon­orary de­gree of Doc­tor of Let­ters (DLitt) and she was made a mem­ber of the Or­der of Mer­it. At his 2023, coro­na­tion, Baroness Ben­jamin was cho­sen by King Charles III to car­ry the Scep­tre with Dove.

● Heather Headley

Trinidad and To­ba­go-born Heather Headley has made an in­deli­ble mark on the world stage as a singer and an ac­tress.

Win­ning the role of Nala in the orig­i­nal Broad­way cast of El­ton John and Tim Rice’s hit, Tony-win­ning mu­si­cal, The Li­on King in 1997 was the be­gin­ning. Heather was then asked to au­di­tion for the ti­tle role in the writ­ing duo’s next Broad­way ven­ture to­geth­er, El­ton John and Tim Rice’s Ai­da. Her por­tray­al of the Nu­bian princess, Ai­da, won her the pres­ti­gious Tony Award for ‘Best Ac­tress’ in a Mu­si­cal – the first of many awards that she would col­lect in her pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer.

Her 2002 de­but al­bum on RCA Records, This Is Who I Am, saw two songs - He Is and the al­bum track I Wish I Wasn’t - emerged as top five R&B and Dance Chart hits and earned her Gram­my Award nom­i­na­tions for ‘Best New Artist’ and ‘Best Fe­male R&B Vo­cal Per­for­mance’. The al­bum ti­tle sin­gle in her 2006 so­lo al­bum, In My Mind, be­came Heather’s first #1 hit, top­ping the Dance and R&B charts. She won the Gram­my Award for Best Con­tem­po­rary R&B Gospel Al­bum with her 2009 re­lease, Au­di­ence of One.

In ad­di­tion to per­form­ing in con­certs through­out the Unit­ed States, and the world, in 2012, Heather re­ceived an Olivi­er nom­i­na­tion for orig­i­nat­ing the mu­si­cal role of Rachel Mar­ron in Lon­don’s West End hit The Body­guard.  A few years lat­er, she re­turned to New York and the Broad­way stage in the Tony-win­ning mu­si­cal, The Col­or Pur­ple, and more re­cent­ly, in the pre-Broad­way bound hit, In­to The Woods. She has held roles in NBC’s Chica­go Med, Spike Lee’s She’s Got­ta’ Have It, and cur­rent­ly plays He­len on the Net­flix hit se­ries Sweet Mag­no­lias.

Heather com­pletes her life with her hus­band, Bri­an, and their three chil­dren.

● Lawrence Scott

Born in south­ern Trinidad, and ed­u­cat­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Unit­ed King­dom, Lawrence Scott emerged as an award-win­ning cre­ative writer in the 1990s.

His first nov­el, Witch­b­room (1992), was short-list­ed for the Com­mon­wealth Writ­ers’ Prize, read in the BBC’s Ra­dio 4 Book at Bed­time Pro­gramme, and a 25th An­niver­sary edi­tion pub­lished in 2017. It has al­so been trans­lat­ed in­to French, un­der the ti­tle, Bal­ai de Sor­cière (2020).

Aelred’s Sin, his sec­ond nov­el (1998), was award­ed the Com­mon­wealth Writ­ers’ Prize as the Best Book (Cana­da and Caribbean). Two oth­er well-re­viewed nov­els fol­lowed, Night Ca­lyp­so (2004), Ca­lyp­so de Nu­it (2005) and Light Falling on Bam­boo (2012). His most re­cent nov­el, Dan­ger­ous Free­dom, ap­peared in 2020/21.

Equal­ly well-known for short sto­ries, his first col­lec­tion, Bal­lad for the New World ap­peared in 1994, in­clud­ing The House of Fu­ner­als which won The Tom-Gal­lon Award (1986) and his sec­ond, Leav­ing by Plane, Swim­ming Back Un­der­wa­ter, in 2015. His po­et­ry has been pub­lished in sev­er­al an­tholo­gies and jour­nals, as well as es­says, re­views, and in­ter­views with oth­er Caribbean writ­ers. His re­search on the life of the is­land’s fa­mous 19th-cen­tu­ry painter, Michel Jean Caz­abon, re­sult­ed in the nov­el Light Falling on Bam­boo. He con­duct­ed and edit­ed the re­search which re­sult­ed in Gol­con­da Our Voic­es Our Lives, (2009) con­tain­ing sto­ries and po­ems by sug­ar-cane work­ers.

Writer in Res­i­dence twice for the an­nu­al Cam­pus Lit­er­a­ture Week at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies St. Au­gus­tine Cam­pus, he has lec­tured in the MFA pro­gramme, men­tored stu­dents, and giv­en read­ings over a month in res­i­dence.

Mr. Scott has be­gun the process of hand­ing over his archives to The UWI’s Al­ma Jor­dan Li­brary. The archives for Witch­b­room are al­ready open to re­searchers, join­ing oth­er fa­mous writ­ers such as Wal­cott, Lovelace, CLR James, Sam Selvon, and Michael An­tho­ny.

● Pro­fes­sor E. Dale Abel

Pro­fes­sor E. Dale Abel is the William S. Adams Dis­tin­guished Pro­fes­sor and Chair of the De­part­ment of Med­i­cine of the David Gef­fen School of Med­i­cine at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Los An­ge­les, USA. An en­docri­nol­o­gist, his work fo­cuss­es on the mol­e­c­u­lar mech­a­nisms that un­der­pin car­diac fail­ure in di­a­betes. A Fel­low of the Amer­i­can Heart As­so­ci­a­tion and the Amer­i­can Col­lege of Physi­cians, he is an elect­ed mem­ber of the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my of Med­i­cine and the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences.

Pro­fes­sor Abel com­plet­ed his un­der­grad­u­ate stud­ies at The UWI in med­i­cine and his doc­tor­al re­search in phys­i­ol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ox­ford. Since then he has been on a con­tin­u­ing tra­jec­to­ry, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the area of di­a­betes. While on the fac­ul­ty at Har­vard, he was ap­point­ed co-Di­rec­tor of the fel­low­ship pro­gramme at Beth Is­rael Dea­coness Med­ical Cen­ter. He was re­cruit­ed to the fac­ul­ty at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Utah in 2000, first as As­sis­tant Pro­fes­sor ris­ing to Pro­fes­sor of Med­i­cine. He moved to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Iowa in 2013 to di­rect the F.O.E. Di­a­betes Re­search Cen­ter and served as Chair of Med­i­cine un­til 2021.

He has re­ceived many awards and ho­n­ours, in­clud­ing the 1986 Rhodes schol­ar­ship at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ox­ford and con­tin­u­ing to the present with the pre­sen­ta­tion of the 2018 African Amer­i­can Mu­se­um of Iowa His­to­ry Mak­ers Award and, in 2020, be­ing named as one of the most in­spi­ra­tional Black sci­en­tists in the Unit­ed States.

● The Ho­n­ourable Las­celles A Chin

Founder and Ex­ec­u­tive Chair­man of the LAS­CO Af­fil­i­at­ed Com­pa­nies, the Hon Las­celles A Chin was a vi­sion­ary busi­ness leader, pi­o­neer­ing ex­porter, and phil­an­thropist who has left his en­dur­ing lega­cy in Ja­maica and the Caribbean.

His con­tri­bu­tion to the health Sec­tor has been rev­o­lu­tion­ary. In ad­di­tion to his com­pa­ny’s phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal di­vi­sion rep­re­sent­ing multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies, it cre­at­ed its gener­ic brand, LASMED and in­tro­duced an­ti-retro­vi­ral drugs in­tro­duced to the Ja­maican mar­ket­place, sell­ing the prod­uct at one-tenth the price set by the multi­na­tion­al drug com­pa­nies. The com­pa­ny al­so made avail­able, at no cost to the pub­lic for three years, an­ti-retro­vi­ral drugs to pre­vent moth­er-to-child trans­mis­sion of HIV.

His pub­lic ser­vice in­clud­ed mem­ber­ship of var­i­ous pub­lic or­gan­i­sa­tions, in­clud­ing the King’s House Char­i­ty Com­mit­tee, EX­IM Bank, the Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal of the West In­dies School of Nurs­ing, the Trade Board, and the In­sti­tute of Sports.

The Ho­n­ourable Las­celles Chin re­ceived the Or­der of Ja­maica, the coun­try’s fourth high­est na­tion­al ho­n­our in 2001; was con­ferred with the Or­der of Dis­tinc­tion (Com­man­der Class) in 1986; named Busi­ness Leader of the Year 1996, and Ja­maica Ob­serv­er Busi­ness Leader of the Year 2000. He was al­so con­ferred an Hon­orary Doc­tor of Laws De­gree (LLD) from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy Ja­maica in 2015 and the Hon­orary Doc­tor of Hu­mane Let­ters De­gree (DHL) from North­ern Caribbean Uni­ver­si­ty in 2016.

● Hugh Beres­ford Ham­mond, OJ

Through­out a five-decade ca­reer, Hugh Beres­ford Ham­mond has thrilled gen­er­a­tions with his smoky-sweet voice. From the funked-up Reg­gae jams of the 1970s fu­sion band ‘Zap Pow’, where he was a lead singer, to the lush in­stru­men­ta­tion of his 1976 al­bum Soul Reg­gae, to the spare dig­i­tal beat of his 1985 dance­hall break­through, What One Dance Can Do.

Hugh Beres­ford Ham­mond’s ear­ly for­ay in mu­sic came through his par­tic­i­pa­tion at tal­ent shows but his first re­lease, The Wan­der­er would be the start of a pro­lif­ic ca­reer, which has, so far, pro­duced 22 so­lo al­bums, from Soul Reg­gae on the Wa­ter Lil­ly La­bel (1976), to Let’s Make A Song on the Broth­er­hood Mu­sic Inc. (1981), to Life­time Guar­an­tee on Greensleeves La­bel (1997) to an as­ton­ish­ing 13 al­bums for VP Records.

His spon­ta­neous method of com­pos­ing, and un­will­ing­ness to com­pro­mise on the qual­i­ty of his sound, made a home stu­dio the nat­ur­al choice for many and con­tin­ues to at­tract a steady stream of Ja­maica’s most tal­ent­ed mu­si­cians.

In 2002, the al­bum Mu­sic Is Life, was nom­i­nat­ed for the Gram­my Award for ‘Best Reg­gae Al­bum’. The al­bum con­tained two of what would be­come Ham­mond’s top songs, Rock Away and They Gonna Talk. On Jan­u­ary 1, 2023, Beres part­nered with long-time mu­si­cal part­ner, Bu­ju Ban­ton, to pro­duce one of the biggest live con­certs in Ja­maica’s his­to­ry, at Plan­ta­tion Cove, St. Ann.

The Gov­ern­ment of Ja­maica award­ed him the Or­der of Ja­maica in 2013 for his ex­cep­tion­al and ded­i­cat­ed con­tri­bu­tion to the Ja­maican mu­sic in­dus­try.

● Rachel Man­ley

In the Pan­theon of Caribbean Let­ters, Rachel Man­ley stands alone. Sin­gu­lar in the ver­sa­til­i­ty and range of her con­tri­bu­tion as a po­et, bi­og­ra­ph­er, ed­i­tor, short sto­ry writer, nov­el­ist, crit­ic, mem­oirist, and teacher, she is cel­e­brat­ed for the sim­plic­i­ty and depth of her po­et­ry and the el­e­gance and pre­ci­sion of her prose.

Win­ner of Ja­maica’s Mus­grave Cen­ten­ni­al Medal in 1991, her mas­tery of the Eng­lish lan­guage was renowned very ear­ly in her ca­reer. That skill and her keen mind were soon recog­nised. Books Cana­da in 1996 not­ed: “As a po­et, Rachel Man­ley sens­es the res­o­nances be­tween his­to­ry and place, be­tween per­son­al­i­ty and des­tiny and evokes them with re­al elo­quence”. One year lat­er, she would win the Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al’s Lit­er­ary Award for Non-Fic­tion for Drum­blair: Mem­o­ries of a Ja­maican Child­hood.

As a teacher of cre­ative writ­ing, Ms. Man­ley is help­ing to form a new gen­er­a­tion of writ­ers. A staunch pro­mot­er and de­fend­er of Caribbean cul­ture, her schol­ar­ship is ev­i­dent in her thor­ough and wide-rang­ing re­search in the re­gion and the Unit­ed King­dom to es­tab­lish and ver­i­fy facts, and to gain an un­der­stand­ing of the back­ground and his­tor­i­cal as­pects of the mem­oirs.

Rachel Man­ley, as an alum­na of The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies has brought great ho­n­our to the Caribbean re­gion.

● Her Ex­cel­len­cy Au­drey Patrice Marks

Au­drey Patrice Marks is Ja­maica’s 13th and first fe­male Am­bas­sador to the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca (USA) and Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Ja­maica to the Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States. (OAS). She is the first Am­bas­sador to be ap­point­ed three times and in two dif­fer­ent ad­min­is­tra­tions. Apart from her crit­i­cal role as Ja­maica’s voice in the Ja­maica-USA bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions, she is al­so an im­por­tant in­ter­locu­tor at the OAS for re­la­tions in the West­ern Hemi­sphere.

Her un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to na­tion-build­ing is matched by her out­stand­ing record as an en­tre­pre­neur. She was the first fe­male Pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of Ja­maica. Dur­ing her tenure, she gave a sin­gu­lar fo­cus on in­creas­ing in­vest­ment and trade be­tween the Unit­ed States and Ja­maica.

Am­bas­sador Marks’ en­tre­pre­neur­ial ac­tiv­i­ties in­clude the cul­ti­va­tion of a 100-acre farm for ba­nana ex­port, com­mer­cial trans­porta­tion and re­al es­tate de­vel­op­ment. She al­so op­er­at­ed a ven­ture cap­i­tal com­pa­ny with in­vest­ments in a range of en­ter­pris­es in­clud­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing, trav­el and en­ter­tain­ment; and found­ed Pay­mas­ter (Ja­maica) Lim­it­ed, the first mul­ti-pay­ment sys­tem in the Caribbean which to­day serves over 1.7 mil­lion cus­tomers on­line and through 200 lo­ca­tions, from which all types of bill pay­ments and re­mit­tances can be made.

In recog­ni­tion of her com­mit­ment to na­tion-build­ing and re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment through her busi­ness en­deav­ours, Am­bas­sador Marks was award­ed a Doc­tor of Laws (hon­oris causa) in 2012 from the North­ern Caribbean Uni­ver­si­ty, and the Flori­da In­ter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty Busi­ness Leader of the Year Award for 2003 and 2010.

To­day, Am­bas­sador Au­drey Marks is recog­nised not on­ly for her pi­o­neer­ing busi­ness achieve­ments but al­so her out­stand­ing diplo­mat­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the Unit­ed States and the West­ern Hemi­sphere.

● Mon­sign­or Ho­n­ourable Dr Patrick ‘Pa­ba’ An­tho­ny, SLC

This Ro­man Catholic priest, whose or­di­na­tion cer­e­mo­ny in Saint Lu­cia in 1972 was the first to in­clude the sound of African drums, steel pan, and gui­tar, would lat­er be­come the first to at­tempt cel­e­brat­ing Mass in his na­tive tongue, Saint Lu­cian Kwéyòl. A unique fig­ure in that coun­try’s his­to­ry, Ms­gr Patrick ‘Pa­ba’ An­tho­ny came out of the fer­ment that fol­lowed the Catholic Church’s Vat­i­can II, as it im­pact­ed the Caribbean Catholic Church.

A pas­sion­ate ad­vo­cate of the then cur­rent con­cept of ‘New Caribbean Per­son­hood’, he pro­mot­ed Black aware­ness and Caribbean con­scious­ness among groups of young peo­ple in parish­es through the use of Caribbean-style wor­ship songs and litur­gi­cal vest­ments, and the cel­e­bra­tion of in­dige­nous re­li­gious art on church mu­rals.  He en­cour­aged in­volve­ment at the grass roots lev­els of the parish­es, with a spe­cial con­cern for the young, the poor, the el­der­ly and the home­less.

In 1973, he found­ed the Folk Re­search Cen­tre whose me­dia pro­grammes for the first time brought to the wider Saint Lu­cian pub­lic, au­then­tic in­for­ma­tion on their folk cul­ture. This fos­tered pos­i­tive at­ti­tudes to­wards Saint Lu­cia’s first lan­guage, Kwéyòl, and led to its ac­cep­tance in­to hith­er­to closed places like main­stream Me­dia, Par­lia­ment, and writ­ten pub­li­ca­tions, cul­mi­nat­ing in the birth of the na­tion’s largest con­tem­po­rary cul­tur­al fes­ti­val, Jounen Kwéyòl.

The­olo­gian, com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist, and cul­tur­al ac­tivist, Ms­gr An­tho­ny’s com­mit­ment to church and cul­ture led him to es­tab­lish the Ju­bilee Trust Fund to as­sist young artists, cul­tur­al ac­tivists and re­searchers; the St. Lucy’s Home for re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of street peo­ple; and the Con­fer­ence on The­ol­o­gy in the Caribbean To­day (CTCT), which he co-found­ed in 1994.  Re­cip­i­ent of the Saint Lu­cia Cross (2000) and named a Na­tion­al Cul­tur­al Hero (2013), he was de­clared a Lau­re­ate in 2019, by the World As­so­ci­a­tion for Chris­t­ian Com­mu­ni­ca­tion (WACC).

Ms­gr Dr Patrick An­tho­ny has made an en­dur­ing im­pres­sion on mod­ern Saint Lu­cia and shaped a gen­er­a­tion that now forms Caribbean lead­er­ship. 

● The Right Ho­n­ourable Dame Janet Gwen­nett Bost­wick, CB, DBE

Dame Janet Gwen­nett Bost­wick, Coun­sel and At­tor­ney-at-Law, is re­spect­ed for her cham­pi­oning the em­pow­er­ment and im­prove­ment of women in The Com­mon­wealth of The Ba­hamas and the re­gion.

In that re­gard, she has achieved sev­er­al firsts: the first woman to hold the post of Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of The Ba­hamas Pub­lic Ser­vices Union; to pros­e­cute in the Ba­hami­an Courts; to serve as Pres­i­dent of The Ba­hamas Bar As­so­ci­a­tion and Chair of the Bar Coun­cil; to serve as a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and be ap­point­ed At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in The Ba­hamas and the re­gion. She was al­so the first woman to be ap­point­ed that coun­try’s Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs and to act in the post of Prime Min­is­ter.

She was in­stru­men­tal, in­ter alia, in es­tab­lish­ing a full-time do­mes­tic mag­is­trate’s court; ex­pan­sion of the Ju­ve­nile Pan­el and of grounds for di­vorce to in­clude de­ser­tion and cru­el­ty; amend­ment of af­fil­i­a­tion pro­ceed­ings laws to re­move lim­its of main­te­nance so that a par­ent con­tributes pro­por­tion­ate­ly to their lev­el of in­come; abo­li­tion of pri­mo­gen­i­ture law so all chil­dren in­her­it equal­ly and the fil­ius nul­lius doc­trine al­low­ing recog­ni­tion of chil­dren born out of wed­lock as chil­dren of their fa­ther with a right to his name; re­moval of dis­crim­i­na­tion against women in in­her­i­tance laws; in­creased ma­ter­ni­ty leave, old age non-con­trib­u­to­ry pen­sion; and mod­erni­sa­tion of sex­u­al of­fens­es and do­mes­tic vi­o­lence laws.  She played a piv­otal role in the es­tab­lish­ment of the Eu­gene Dupuch Law School.

In 2018, she was made a Com­pan­ion of the Or­der of The Ba­hamas and lat­er that year, a Dame Com­man­der of the Most Ex­cel­lent Or­der of the British Em­pire.  She was the 2021 re­cip­i­ent of the CARI­COM Tri­en­ni­al Award for Women.