Four peo­ple were recog­nised for their out­stand­ing achieve­ments in their re­spec­tive fields dur­ing the An­tho­ny N Sab­ga Caribbean Awards for Ex­cel­lence at the Hy­att Ho­tel on Sat­ur­day night.

Jazz mu­si­cian Eti­enne Charles re­ceived the Arts & Let­ters lau­re­ate. Agri-en­tre­pre­neur and founder of on­line gro­cery d’ Mar­ket Movers (T&T), Rachel Re­nie-Gon­za­les, re­ceived the En­tre­pre­neur­ship lau­re­ate. Fam­i­ly ther­a­pist Ay­o­dele Dal­gety-Dean from Guyana re­ceived the Pub­lic & Civic Con­tri­bu­tions lau­re­ate, and Ja­maican can­cer re­searcher Dr Si­mone Badal re­ceived the Sci­ence & Tech­nol­o­gy lau­re­ate.

Chair­man of the ANSA McAL Foun­da­tion, An­drew N Sab­ga, said that over its 20-year jour­ney, the An­tho­ny N Sab­ga Awards have recog­nised 66 out­stand­ing Caribbean in­di­vid­u­als, in­clud­ing the four ho­n­oured on Sat­ur­day evening.

“The ANSA McAL Foun­da­tion has nev­er flagged in its com­mit­ment to this mis­sion. Even dur­ing the two-year pan­dem­ic, when gath­er­ings were al­most im­pos­si­ble, we sought out the best and recog­nised their work. I reaf­firm our com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing Caribbean ex­cel­lence and nur­tur­ing tal­ent that will shape our re­gion for gen­er­a­tions,” Sab­ga said.

He ex­plained that se­lect­ing the lau­re­ates is a rig­or­ous process, de­mand­ing ded­i­ca­tion, dis­cern­ment, and a deep un­der­stand­ing of the Caribbean land­scape.

Sab­ga thanked the five coun­try nom­i­nat­ing com­mit­tees, who tire­less­ly iden­ti­fied ex­cep­tion­al cit­i­zens from across the re­gion.

Re­nie-Gon­za­les, who re­ceived the En­tre­pre­neur­ship lau­re­ate, told the au­di­ence that recog­ni­tion for hard work and ded­i­ca­tion mat­ters.

“As an en­tre­pre­neur, there is no one more self­less than an en­tre­pre­neur. In the cat­e­go­ry of en­tre­pre­neur­ship, all we do is serve our cus­tomers. All we do is solve prob­lems 10 years down the road.”

Ay­o­dele Dal­gety-Dean, fam­i­ly ther­a­pist and founder of child pro­tec­tion NGO Blos­som Inc (Guyana), said the recog­ni­tion ho­n­ours the count­less chil­dren, women, and mi­grants in Guyana whose lives her team strives to im­pact pos­i­tive­ly every day.

Af­ter the cer­e­mo­ny, Eti­enne Charles told Guardian Me­dia he felt hum­bled by the ho­n­our.

“We each have a role to play and when we don’t, things be­come out of bal­ance. But I am grate­ful to the Sab­ga fam­i­ly and I am grate­ful to the ANSA McAL Foun­da­tion, the com­mit­tees, and the sub-com­mit­tees that cham­pi­on this. My ad­vice to mu­si­cians is to re­main per­sis­tent in pur­su­ing your dreams.”

Dr Si­mone Badal, recog­nised for her con­tri­bu­tions to sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy, said it was grat­i­fy­ing to know the re­gion val­ued and sup­port­ed her work. She ex­pressed hope that it would ben­e­fit equal ac­cess to can­cer re­search glob­al­ly.

Asked what comes next, Badal said she in­tends to test can­cer prod­ucts to de­ter­mine their ef­fec­tive­ness in treat­ing the dis­ease.

“We need to de­vel­op tar­get­ed ther­a­pies for our Caribbean men and women with can­cer, and that is what we are hop­ing to do. So, there is much more ahead. My ad­vice is to seek your pur­pose and know ex­act­ly why you are here. You can over­come the chal­lenges be­cause there will be chal­lenges in this field.”

Each lau­re­ate re­ceived $500,000, along with a ci­ta­tion and a medal.

This is the Caribbean’s most pres­ti­gious awards pro­gramme. Pri­vate­ly fund­ed by the ANSA McAL Foun­da­tion, it of­fers tan­gi­ble, sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits to lau­re­ates who rep­re­sent the re­gion’s best in the cat­e­gories of Arts & Let­ters, En­tre­pre­neur­ship, Pub­lic & Civic Con­tri­bu­tions, and Sci­ence & Tech­nol­o­gy.