OR­DER OF THE RE­PUB­LIC OF TRINIDAD AND TO­BA­GO

Chief Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh

The Chief Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh was ad­mit­ted to prac­tise as an at­tor­ney-at-law in Trinidad and To­ba­go on Oc­to­ber 30, 1992, and ap­point­ed a Supreme Court Judge in Sep­tem­ber 2007. He served as a High Court Judge in both the Crim­i­nal and Civ­il ju­ris­dic­tions be­fore be­ing el­e­vat­ed to the Court of Ap­peal in 2020.

Sen­a­tor Wade Stephen Mark

Wade Mark was elect­ed pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate of the 13th Re­pub­li­can Par­lia­ment in 2025. He first en­tered Par­lia­ment as an Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor in 1990 and be­came one of the longest-serv­ing Sen­a­tors in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Dr Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan

Dr Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan is a for­mer mem­ber of par­lia­ment and min­is­ter of for­eign af­fairs and na­tion­al ser­vice. A for­mer may­or of Ch­agua­nas, he is al­so a promi­nent aca­d­e­m­ic and cul­tur­al ac­tivist who has de­vel­oped so­cial in­sti­tu­tions and com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice or­gan­i­sa­tions vol­un­tar­i­ly for more than 60 years.

CHA­CO­NIA MEDAL—GOLD

Dr Paul Elias Alexan­der

Dr Paul E Alexan­der is an ac­com­plished epi­demi­ol­o­gist, re­search method­ol­o­gist and ev­i­dence-based med­i­cine ex­pert with more than 20 years of ex­pe­ri­ence in pub­lic health, clin­i­cal re­search and ev­i­dence syn­the­sis.

Joseph Toney

Joseph Toney served in sev­er­al Min­is­te­r­i­al ca­pac­i­ties dur­ing the 3rd Re­pub­li­can Par­lia­ment and was the elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive for To­co/Man­zanil­la dur­ing the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) Ad­min­is­tra­tion from 1986 to 1991. He is an at­tor­ney and for­mer par­lia­men­tar­i­an with decades of pub­lic ser­vice.

Kesh­mani Dhani­ram-Go­sine

Kesh­mani Dhani­ram-Go­sine is an ed­u­ca­tor, leader and com­mu­ni­ty ser­vant with a ca­reer span­ning more than four decades. As Prin­ci­pal of Gand­hi Memo­r­i­al Vedic School from 2009 to 2025, she spear­head­ed de­vel­op­ments in teach­ing, com­mu­ni­ty mo­bil­i­sa­tion and in­fra­struc­ture.

Maukesh Bas­deo

Dr Maukesh Bas­deo is a po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist, ed­u­ca­tor, re­searcher and pub­lic com­men­ta­tor with more than two decades of ser­vice at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine. He holds a PhD in Po­lit­i­cal Sci­ence and has con­tributed to the study of par­lia­men­tary gov­er­nance, pub­lic ad­min­is­tra­tion, pub­lic pol­i­cy, con­sti­tu­tion­al af­fairs and Caribbean po­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ment.

Jus­tice Al­lan Men­donça (re­tired)

Jus­tice Al­lan Men­donça is a re­tired dis­tin­guished ju­rist with more than four decades of ex­pe­ri­ence in the law. He was ad­mit­ted to prac­tise in Trinidad and To­ba­go in 1981, be­came a High Court Judge in 1999 and a Jus­tice of Ap­peal in 2004, serv­ing un­til 2024 and act­ing as Chief Jus­tice on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions. He played a piv­otal role in im­ple­ment­ing and mon­i­tor­ing the Civ­il Pro­ceed­ings Rules.

Ha­ji Churchill Azad Akaloo (posthu­mous)

Ha­ji Churchill Azad Akaloo was a Trinidad and To­ba­go en­tre­pre­neur and phil­an­thropist who built Sheik Lisha Ltd from a hum­ble fam­i­ly ven­ture in­to a ma­jor Caribbean man­u­fac­tur­ing en­ter­prise. He rose from child­hood fi­nan­cial hard­ship, help­ing his fa­ther sell cur­ry pow­der by bi­cy­cle for a pen­ny a pack­et, to build­ing a suc­cess­ful man­u­fac­tur­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion en­ter­prise.

CHA­CO­NIA MEDAL—SIL­VER

Omatie Ly­der

Omatie Ly­der is a vet­er­an jour­nal­ist and news­room leader whose dis­tin­guished ca­reer spans 43 years at the Trinidad Ex­press News­pa­pers, in­clud­ing 15 years as Ed­i­tor-in-Chief. Be­gin­ning as a trainee jour­nal­ist and re­porter, she served as colum­nist, News Ed­i­tor, Fea­tures Ed­i­tor, Busi­ness Ed­i­tor, Sun­day Ex­press Ed­i­tor, Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor, Op-Ed Ed­i­tor and Ed­i­tor-in-Chief. She re­tired in Feb­ru­ary 2026 and is cur­rent­ly Con­sult­ing Ed­i­tor.

Ria Taitt

Ria Taitt is a vet­er­an jour­nal­ist whose ca­reer spans more than four decades. Her jour­nal­ism ca­reer be­gan at the Trinidad Ex­press in Sep­tem­ber 1984 as a fea­ture writer be­fore she moved to the po­lit­i­cal desk. She re­port­ed ex­ten­sive­ly on par­lia­men­tary af­fairs and cov­ered 11 Gen­er­al Elec­tions. She served as po­lit­i­cal ed­i­tor for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 years be­fore re­tir­ing in March 2026.

An­drea De Sil­va

An­drea De Sil­va has 33 years of ex­pe­ri­ence as a pho­to­jour­nal­ist, cov­er­ing every­thing from Trinidad Car­ni­val mas­quer­ade to ur­gent news sto­ries, of­fi­cial cer­e­monies and com­mu­ni­ty events. Her work has con­tributed to na­tion­al civic dis­course through cov­er­age of break­ing news, po­lit­i­cal changes, com­mu­ni­ty crises and de­vel­op­ment is­sues.

Jai Paras­ram

Jai Paras­ram is a vet­er­an jour­nal­ist, au­thor and con­sul­tant with five decades of ser­vice across the Caribbean and Cana­da. He be­gan his ca­reer in 1972 at Trinidad and To­ba­go Tele­vi­sion, work­ing as a re­porter, ed­i­tor, pro­duc­er, an­chor and news di­rec­tor. He is al­so the au­thor of Be­yond Sur­vival – In­di­ans in Trinidad and To­ba­go 1845-2017 and Far From the Moun­tain.

HUM­MING­BIRD MEDAL—GOLD

Sham­sudeen Ayube, Hunters’ Search and Res­cue Team

Com­man­der Shamshudeen Ayube is a ded­i­cat­ed com­mu­ni­ty leader and founder of the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team. Since es­tab­lish­ing the reg­is­tered non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion in Feb­ru­ary 2021, he has pro­vid­ed lead­er­ship and di­rec­tion in search and res­cue op­er­a­tions, co­or­di­nat­ing vol­un­teers and emer­gency re­sponse ef­forts. His work in­cludes as­sist­ing in search­es for miss­ing and vul­ner­a­ble per­sons, sup­port­ing in­di­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies dur­ing times of cri­sis, and pro­mot­ing pre­pared­ness, team­work and com­mu­ni­ty aware­ness.

Val­lence Ramb­harat, Hunters’ Search and Res­cue Team

Val­lence Ramb­harat found­ed the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team on Feb­ru­ary 2, 2021. He has led a ded­i­cat­ed team of vol­un­teers that has con­duct­ed more than 500 search and res­cue op­er­a­tions through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go. The team’s vi­sion is to work with law en­force­ment to as­sist fam­i­lies whose loved ones go miss­ing.

Ganesh Ut­sav Foun­da­tion

Based in south Trinidad and led by Pun­dit Sunil Seethal Ma­haraj, the Ganesh Ut­sav Foun­da­tion, in­cor­po­rat­ed as a non-prof­it in 2017, com­bines re­li­gious ser­vice with hu­man­i­tar­i­an as­sis­tance. Its work in­cludes pro­vid­ing food and sup­port to vul­ner­a­ble per­sons, re­spond­ing to floods with hot meals and es­sen­tial sup­plies, and pro­mot­ing com­mu­ni­ty re­silience, com­pas­sion and so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

Chin­maya Mis­sion

Found­ed on Oc­to­ber 2, 1997, Chin­maya Mis­sion Trinidad & To­ba­go, un­der Swa­mi Prakashanan­da, grew from three found­ing mem­bers in­to a spir­i­tu­al com­mu­ni­ty of over 10,000 na­tion­wide. Since ini­ti­at­ing ac­tiv­i­ties in 1997, Swami­ji has con­tin­ued sat­sangs, ya­j­nas and camps across Trinidad, the Caribbean, US, Cana­da and the Unit­ed King­dom.

Rakesh Yankar­ran

Rakesh Yankar­ran, pop­u­lar­ly known as “The Ra­ja”, has been a cel­e­brat­ed voice in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s mu­si­cal land­scape for more than five decades. Born in Cara­pichaima in 1959, he be­gan singing in tem­ples and re­li­gious func­tions at age 10, fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of his fa­ther, Isaac Yankar­ran. He re­mains a promi­nent fig­ure in chut­ney, clas­si­cal, bha­jan and film mu­sic.

Shamshad Ali

Shamshad Feisal Yac­coob Ali is a dis­tin­guished ex­ec­u­tive with more than three decades of pro­fes­sion­al con­tri­bu­tion in Cor­po­rate Fi­nan­cial Plan­ning and Ad­min­is­tra­tion, Prop­er­ty Man­age­ment, Hu­man Re­sources, ICT man­age­ment and So­cial Me­dia Man­age­ment. Through his per­son­al and cor­po­rate re­sources, in­clud­ing Cen­ter Pointe Mall and Price Club, he has pro­vid­ed na­tion­al ser­vice by dis­trib­ut­ing food ham­pers, build­ing homes, pro­vid­ing flood re­lief, liq­ui­dat­ing util­i­ty bills and do­nat­ing cloth­ing, school sup­plies, elec­tron­ic de­vices and class­room fur­ni­ture.

Sadhrud­din ‘Sadro’ Mo­hammed (posthu­mous)

On Ju­ly 4, 1993, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s first 24-hour all-In­di­an ra­dio sta­tion, 103FM, went on air, with Sadhrud­din “Sadro” Mo­hammed as the first voice lis­ten­ers heard, open­ing the sta­tion with his pro­gramme Shab­nam. Com­ing from a fam­i­ly that pi­o­neered East In­di­an mu­sic and cul­ture, Sadro was a pi­o­neer in broad­cast­ing and a mu­si­cian who played har­mo­ni­um, tabla, gui­tar and dho­lak. He lat­er op­er­at­ed Saarana Stu­dios, where nu­mer­ous mu­si­cal record­ings were pro­duced.

Emamool ‘Mamoo’ Deen (posthu­mous)

Dou­bles was pop­u­larised in the 1930s in Princes Town by Emamool Deen and his wife, Ra­su­lan Deen. What be­gan as the sale of cur­ried chick­peas evolved in­to a savoury dish served with chut­ney and oth­er spices and even­tu­al­ly with a sin­gle fried flat­bread or bara. As cus­tomers be­gan re­quest­ing that the bara be dou­bled in their or­ders, the name “dou­bles” was coined. Their achieve­ment ex­tend­ed to the de­vel­op­ment of a sus­tain­able mod­el of grass­roots en­tre­pre­neur­ship. By in­no­vat­ing with the “dou­ble bara”, they es­tab­lished a busi­ness mod­el em­braced by hun­dreds of ven­dors na­tion­wide. To­day, dou­bles is con­sid­ered Trinidad and To­ba­go’s num­ber one street food.

Syl­bert Rob­ley

For more than five decades, Syl­bert “Bell­man” Rob­ley, 78, has been a ded­i­cat­ed com­mu­ni­ty and spir­i­tu­al leader in In­di­an Walk, Moru­ga. He has de­vot­ed his time to as­sist­ing se­nior cit­i­zens, sup­port­ing and guid­ing young peo­ple and con­tribut­ing to the well­be­ing of fam­i­lies. Along­side his em­ploy­ment with the Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion, he re­mained com­mit­ted to help­ing those around him. Rob­ley has al­so served as a leader in the Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist faith, to which he has de­vot­ed more than 64 years, pro­vid­ing spir­i­tu­al guid­ance, men­tor­ship and sup­port to el­ders and younger gen­er­a­tions. He re­mains ac­tive­ly in­volved with the el­der­ly and chil­dren of his com­mu­ni­ty.

Win­ston Mans­ingh

Rev Win­ston Mans­ingh is an In­ter­na­tion­al­ly Cer­ti­fied Ed­u­ca­tor on HIV and a John Maxwell Lead­er­ship Train­er. He holds a Bach­e­lor’s de­gree in Chris­t­ian Min­istry and com­plet­ed the­o­log­i­cal stud­ies at the Open Bible In­sti­tute of The­ol­o­gy. Since April 2011, he has served as Se­nior Pas­tor of Poon­ah Open Bible Mir­a­cle Cen­tre, a mem­ber church of the Open Bible Stan­dard Church­es Trinidad and To­ba­go. He is al­so El­der-Di­rec­tor of Sup­port­ive Church Min­istries on the na­tion­al board of the OB­SCTT. His lead­er­ship roles in­clude na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al ser­vice, with min­istry through sem­i­nars, con­fer­ences, evan­ge­lis­tic cru­sades and ser­vice en­gage­ments across South Africa, Ugan­da, Pak­istan, the UK, the USA, Cana­da, Aus­tralia and the Caribbean.

HUM­MING­BIRD MEDAL—SIL­VER

Rawle Raphael

Rawle Raphael pi­o­neered ath­let­ics in Trinidad and To­ba­go for more than 50 years. A co-founder of the Hamp­ton In­ter­na­tion­al Games, he is a dis­tin­guished fig­ure in Caribbean ath­let­ics and is known as “Mr Hamp­ton”. He served as Pres­i­dent of the Hamp­ton Ath­let­ic Club up to 2010, a club that pro­duced elite ath­letes such as Ed­win Roberts and Hase­ly Craw­ford. His lead­er­ship, ini­tia­tives and com­mit­ment to ath­lete de­vel­op­ment have earned re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion. In 2012, Raphael was in­duct­ed in­to the Cen­tral Amer­i­can & Caribbean Ath­let­ic Con­fed­er­a­tion Hall of Fame. His ini­tia­tives have pro­vid­ed plat­forms for youth de­vel­op­ment, in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion and na­tion­al pride.

HUM­MING­BIRD MEDAL—BRONZE

Ju­nior Bis­nath

Cul­tur­al prac­ti­tion­er Ju­nior Bis­nath has spent more than three decades pre­serv­ing and pro­mot­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Moko Jumbie tra­di­tion. Known as the “Con­struc­tive Ter­mite”, he is the Founder and Di­rec­tor of the Ju­nior Bis­nath School of Arts and Kaiso­ca Moko Jumbies, where he has pro­vid­ed free train­ing in the art of stilt walk­ing to thou­sands of young peo­ple. Work­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly with chil­dren from un­der­served com­mu­ni­ties, he has used the Moko Jumbie to fos­ter dis­ci­pline, con­fi­dence, self-es­teem and cul­tur­al pride. His stu­dents have rep­re­sent­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go at ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al events. He is al­so a skilled wood­work­er and sculp­tor com­mit­ted to pre­serv­ing tra­di­tion­al crafts­man­ship and col­lect­ing cul­tur­al arte­facts.

Fy­zo­ol Awardy

Fy­zo­ol “Ha­roon” Awardy has de­vot­ed his life to busi­ness, sport and com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, with a par­tic­u­lar com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing young peo­ple and cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties. Born on Au­gust 18, 1949, and raised in Thick Vil­lage, Siparia Road, he be­gan his pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer with Neal & Massy Lim­it­ed be­fore join­ing his fam­i­ly’s busi­ness, Awardy’s Hard­ware and Gen­er­al Sup­plies Lim­it­ed, in 1975. He con­tin­ues to serve as Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor. For more than four decades, he has con­tributed to sport through the South­ern Games Or­ga­niz­ing Com­mit­tee, men­tor­ing and sup­port­ing gen­er­a­tions of ath­letes and cy­clists. He has al­so served as deputy chair­man of PLIPDE­CO, sup­port­ed the Kolo­mo King Steel Or­ches­tra and served as Pres­i­dent of the Thick Vil­lage Ja­maat.

Bish­op Mar­jorie An­der­son

Bish­op Mar­jorie An­der­son has a wide span of cre­den­tials and ser­vice to Trinidad and To­ba­go. She holds a Mas­ter’s De­gree in Ed­u­ca­tion and a Bach­e­lor’s De­gree in Ap­plied Arts and So­cial Ser­vices and is a Coun­sel­lor, Cor­rec­tion­al Ser­vices Pro­fes­sion­al and Reg­is­tered Nurse. In ed­u­ca­tion, she has de­vel­oped cur­ricu­lums, train­ing man­u­als, poli­cies and pro­ce­dures for in­sti­tu­tions in­clud­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Ho­tel School, YTEPP and the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. To­geth­er with Teacher Cathy Adams of the Unit­ed Broth­er­hood of Time Spir­i­tu­al School, she has worked in De­vel­op­ment, Men­tal Health, Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and Ed­u­ca­tion through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go for more than 40 years through their Eman­ci­pa­tion pro­gramme.

THE PUB­LIC SER­VICE MEDAL OF MER­IT—GOLD

Ian Mac­in­tyre, SC

Ian Mac­in­tyre, SC has de­vot­ed more than three decades to pub­lic ser­vice through leg­isla­tive draft­ing and le­gal ad­min­is­tra­tion. From 1988 to 1997, he served as Par­lia­men­tary Coun­sel and Se­nior Par­lia­men­tary Coun­sel in the Leg­isla­tive Draft­ing De­part­ment of the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Trinidad and To­ba­go. He sub­se­quent­ly worked in the British Vir­gin Is­lands as As­sis­tant Par­lia­men­tary Coun­sel, Par­lia­men­tary Coun­sel and Head of the Leg­isla­tive Draft­ing Unit and briefly served as Act­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. In 2010, he was ap­point­ed Chief Par­lia­men­tary Coun­sel in Trinidad and To­ba­go and in 2011 was ad­mit­ted to the In­ner Bar as Se­nior Coun­sel. Through­out his ca­reer, he has con­tributed to the qual­i­ty and clar­i­ty of leg­is­la­tion while up­hold­ing eth­i­cal and pro­fes­sion­al stan­dards.

Ray­mond Su­ru­jbal­ly

Ray­mond Su­ru­jbal­ly is an ed­u­ca­tor of 40 years who has ded­i­cat­ed his ca­reer to ed­u­ca­tion and youth de­vel­op­ment. He serves as Prin­ci­pal of Macaulay Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School in Clax­ton Bay, where he has cham­pi­oned aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment and all-round de­vel­op­ment while em­brac­ing in­no­v­a­tive ap­proach­es to teach­ing and learn­ing. He is a strong ad­vo­cate for the em­pow­er­ment of young peo­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly those fac­ing so­cial, be­hav­iour­al or learn­ing chal­lenges. He has called for greater re­sources in schools, in­clud­ing guid­ance of­fi­cers, so­cial work­ers and teach­ers’ aides, as well as op­por­tu­ni­ties for skills de­vel­op­ment to im­prove stu­dents’ em­ploy­a­bil­i­ty and en­gage­ment in so­ci­ety. His work re­flects a sus­tained com­mit­ment to help­ing young peo­ple over­come bar­ri­ers to learn­ing.

Mas­ter Ralph Doyle

Mas­ter Ralph Doyle be­gan his le­gal ca­reer in 1977 when he was ad­mit­ted to prac­tise law. In 1986, he be­came Ad­min­is­tra­tive Sec­re­tary to the Chief Jus­tice and, in 1990, was ap­point­ed Mas­ter of the High Court, a po­si­tion he held un­til his re­tire­ment in 2008. He served as a Guest Lec­tur­er at the Hugh Wood­ing Law School and as the first Deputy Di­rec­tor of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty. For more than 14 years, he was a mem­ber of the Rules Com­mit­tee and al­so served on the Ad Hoc Com­mit­tee. His con­tri­bu­tions helped lay the ground­work for spe­cialised court man­age­ment and the de­vel­op­ment of ju­di­cial re­search of­fi­cers.

Leonard Brad­shaw

Leonard Brad­shaw made his con­tri­bu­tion to pub­lic ser­vice through his work in the Sen­ate, where he par­tic­i­pat­ed in leg­isla­tive over­sight, pol­i­cy de­lib­er­a­tions and dis­cus­sions on the gov­er­nance frame­work of Trinidad and To­ba­go. He served as Vice-Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate from 1988 to 1991 un­der the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion Gov­ern­ment, pre­sid­ing over Sen­ate pro­ceed­ings, en­sur­ing in­tegri­ty in the leg­isla­tive process and fa­cil­i­tat­ing de­bate in the Up­per House of Par­lia­ment. He has been a long­stand­ing pro­po­nent of pol­i­cy re­form and has spo­ken on na­tion­al is­sues in­clud­ing crime re­duc­tion. His par­lia­men­tary ser­vice came dur­ing a piv­otal pe­ri­od in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry.

Trinidad and To­ba­go Cadet Force

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Cadet Force, es­tab­lished on May 10, 1910, is one of the na­tion’s longest-serv­ing youth de­vel­op­ment or­gan­i­sa­tions. For 116 years, it has de­vel­oped dis­ci­plined, re­spon­si­ble and ser­vice-ori­ent­ed young cit­i­zens through lead­er­ship train­ing, men­tor­ship, com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, camps, vo­ca­tion­al train­ing and cer­e­mo­ni­al ser­vice. It cur­rent­ly serves more than 2,300 cadets and re­cruits na­tion­wide.

MEDAL FOR THE DE­VEL­OP­MENT OF WOMEN—GOLD

Deb­o­rah Moore-Mig­gins

Deb­o­rah Moore-Mig­gins has had an in­flu­en­tial role in ad­vanc­ing the cul­tur­al, le­gal and so­cial de­vel­op­ment of women in Trinidad and To­ba­go through her work as a lawyer, politi­cian, au­thor and cul­tur­al men­tor. Her con­tri­bu­tions in­clude po­lit­i­cal and com­mu­ni­ty ad­vo­ca­cy work, with a fo­cus on the pro­mo­tion of lit­er­a­cy and women’s em­pow­er­ment through men­tor­ship. She found­ed the Peo­ple’s Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty and ran for elec­tion un­der the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, demon­strat­ing lead­er­ship and en­cour­ag­ing women’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in pol­i­tics. She al­so found­ed the Pep­per Ants 2 Speech Band Group and has au­thored hun­dreds of speech­es for lo­cal cul­tur­al pre­sen­ta­tions. She is the au­thor of Caribbean Proverbs That Raised Us, pre­serv­ing Caribbean oral and lit­er­ary tra­di­tion.

Rudrawa­tee Nan Go­sine-Ram­goolam

Dr Rudrawa­tee Nan Go­sine-Ram­goolam’s con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of women in Trinidad and To­ba­go in­cludes be­ing the first Hu­man Re­source Of­fi­cer in the Pub­lic Ser­vice of Trinidad and To­ba­go. She pro­mot­ed the adop­tion of the Strate­gic Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment mod­el in­stead of the Per­son­nel Ad­min­is­tra­tion mod­el and in­tro­duced the Em­ploy­ee As­sis­tance Pro­gramme to man­age em­ploy­ee well­be­ing, pro­vid­ing sup­port to pub­lic of­fi­cers, es­pe­cial­ly fe­male em­ploy­ees. As Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion, she played a piv­otal role in launch­ing the Green Pa­per Trans­form­ing the Civ­il Ser­vice: Re­new­al and Mod­erni­sa­tion, which ad­vanced the Pub­lic Ser­vice Re­form Agen­da. She has been recog­nised by the Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go with its Lega­cy Awards.

De­stra Gar­cia

De­stra Gar­cia has made a last­ing con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment and rep­re­sen­ta­tion of women in Trinidad and To­ba­go through her ca­reer as a so­ca artiste, song­writer and mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­er. Known as the Queen of So­ca and the Queen of Bac­cha­nal, she has tak­en Trinidad and To­ba­go’s mu­sic to au­di­ences across the Caribbean and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, es­tab­lish­ing her­self as one of the genre’s most recog­nis­able fe­male voic­es. With more than two decades in the mu­sic in­dus­try, Gar­cia has used her plat­form to pro­mote con­fi­dence, self-ex­pres­sion and fe­male em­pow­er­ment. Her artis­tic iden­ti­ty and stage pres­ence have chal­lenged con­ven­tion­al ex­pec­ta­tions of women in so­ca and broad­ened the space for fe­male artistes to as­sert them­selves cre­ative­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly.