DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

T&T ma­rine bi­ol­o­gist, Dr Di­va Amon has praised the Ansa McAl Foun­da­tion for pro­vid­ing un­re­strained fund­ing to lau­re­ates se­lect­ed for the An­tho­ny N Sab­ga Awards.

Dr Amon, the sole T&T na­tion­al cho­sen for the pres­ti­gious ho­n­our this year, is the lau­re­ate for Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy. She joint­ly holds the ti­tle with pae­di­atric neu­rol­o­gist Dr Mor­ris Scant­le­bury of Bar­ba­dos.

The 36-year-old was recog­nised for her com­mit­ment to im­prov­ing the con­ser­va­tion of the re­gion’s glob­al ma­rine en­vi­ron­ments through ma­rine sci­ence, pol­i­cy, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

Dr Amon said the funds will help lau­re­ates who are forg­ing un­con­ven­tion­al paths to cre­ate change and find so­lu­tions to grow­ing chal­lenges. She said her al­lo­ca­tion will be es­pe­cial­ly ben­e­fi­cial to the ocean.

"There's much work to be done but there's al­so a lot to be hope­ful about. Tides are chang­ing and this award will help to make the light that we shine on the deep ocean so much brighter and it will be used to es­pe­cial­ly up­lift many, like my stu­dents at UWI, to an­swer crit­i­cal ques­tions and co-cre­ate ocean ac­tion that con­sid­ers all so that we can en­sure the deep ocean and its in­cred­i­bly frag­ile and im­por­tant ecosys­tems stay around so many more Caribbean peo­ple get the chance to ex­pe­ri­ence them in the fu­ture,” she said.

For the first time in its his­to­ry, the awards in­duct­ed three of its five lau­re­ates from the same ter­ri­to­ry, which is why the event was held in Bar­ba­dos. The oth­er two lau­re­ates were from Ja­maica and T&T.

The cer­e­mo­ny took place at the Hilton Bar­ba­dos Re­sort on Sat­ur­day night. Apart from Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy, Caribbean ex­cel­lence was al­so cel­e­brat­ed in Arts and Let­ters, En­tre­pre­neur­ship AND Pub­lic and Civic Con­tri­bu­tions. Each cat­e­go­ry re­ceived a $500,000 cheque which Dr Amon split with her co-awardee.

Chair­man of the Ansa Mcal Foun­da­tion An­drew N Sab­ga not­ed that af­ter years of sta­bil­i­ty, two mem­bers of the em­i­nent per­son's pan­el HAD re­tired. They are Ja­maicans Pro­fes­sor Sir Ken­neth Hall and Christo­pher Bovell. Three new mem­bers have now joined the se­lec­tion pan­el -Ja­maican Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Richard Byles; Am­bas­sador Dr June Soomer of the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of East­ern Caribbean States; and Pro­fes­sor of Peri­na­tal and Pae­di­atric Med­i­cine at UWI Mona, Pro­fes­sor Min­er­va Thame.

The An­tho­ny N. Sab­ga Awards are ad­min­is­tered by the Ansa Mcal Foun­da­tion, the phil­an­thropic arm of the Ansa McAl Group. To date, 62 Caribbean na­tion­als have been recog­nised with more than $30 mil­lion in fund­ing dis­trib­uted.

The four oth­er 2024 Lau­re­ates award­ed last night were:

Mu­si­cian and com­pos­er Dr Ste­fan Wal­cott of Bar­ba­dos (Arts & Let­ters)

Cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence provider Jo­hann Ep­stein of Ja­maica (En­tre­pre­neur­ship)

Dis­abil­i­ty rights ad­vo­cate and ed­u­ca­tor Ms Ker­ryann Ifill of Bar­ba­dos (Pub­lic & Civic Con­tri­bu­tions)

Pe­di­atric neu­rol­o­gist Dr Mor­ris Scant­le­bury of Bar­ba­dos (Sci­ence & Tech­nol­o­gy - Joint)