A quiet thread running through this year's national awards list was an emphasis on individuals who demonstrated significant and often crucial leadership in community and special interest projects. While previous national awards have honoured the leaders of NGOs and community groups, there was a clear emphasis in 2011 on the work done quietly for many years by several persons. While many of these recipients are well known for their professional contributions to Trinidad and Tobago, they are almost all known for notable personal interventions in communities as well.
From Lady Zalayhar Hassanali, given the Order of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago for her social work with, among others, the Friends of the Blood Bank to Derrick Sharbodie, a police officer well known for his work with young people in the St James community who earned the Public Service Medal of Merit (Silver) there are many examples in the 2011 list of citizens who have given their time to the improvement of many communities and interest groups throughout the country. The range of projects and interventions represented in this year's awards list should act as a tangible encouragement to others involved in public service that while such endeavours may be personally and professionally challenging and often seem to operate with surprising invisibility, efforts at improving the lives of citizens that spring from within communities often deliver lasting, life changing results.
Other award winners, like Patrick Arnold and Dr Susan Craig-James have pursued careers which have embedded them in their communities, Arnold working within and for many years leading the steelband movement, and Craig-James crafting definitive works of historical and sociological importance on the island of Tobago. They are not alone in this work. Police Officer Margaret Sampson-Browne has long been a champion of her colleagues in the service and a leading voice for police engagement with communities and Dr Kumar Mahabir is as well known for his many publications recording the history and artifacts of early Indian immigrants as for his formal scholarly work.
Of even greater weight in this year's awards roster was the creation of an entirely new category of public service recognition, the Medal for Women, given for outstanding contributions to the development of women's rights and issues in Trinidad and Tobago. Here, the familiar faces of women's rights champion Diana Mahabir-Wyatt, Hazel Brown who founded one of the earliest NGOs with a focus on women's issues and social activist Brenda Gopeesingh were welcome, if unsurprising inductees into the new category of national service. Trinidad and Tobago, Mahabir-Wyatt noted, "is one of the few countries in the world that recognises that women's rights are on par with human rights."
While the national awards have traditionally been a medium of recognising performances above and beyond the call of duty, this year's emphasis on community outreach and engagement as worthy of public accolade and celebration suggests a welcome change of approach to NGO activity. If the Government is to achieve the kind of fundamental social change it seeks, to reverse the fortunes of communities and to foster positive ambitions, it needs to challenge the ready attractions of crime. It must do so in partnership with the NGOs that are already on the ground, working in these communities and partner with them on expanding their programmes. This has not traditionally been a popular means of working with distressed communities because it tends to rob politicians of easy win photo opportunities, but the investment in change goes further when it's diffused into projects focused on social change crafted by NGOs, who depend on continuous, sustainable successes to keep their initiatives going.