The In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Fo­rum of T&T (IWFTT) will ho­n­our four out­stand­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go women at its third an­nu­al In­spi­ra­tional Women Awards Gala on Sep­tem­ber 17, at the Hy­att Re­gency, Port-of-Spain.

In com­mem­o­ra­tion of the IWFTT’s 10th an­niver­sary in 2024, a spe­cial In­spi­ra­tional Lega­cy Award will be added to the slate of three awards al­ready be­stowed on women whose lives and work in Trinidad and To­ba­go, serve as an in­spi­ra­tion to oth­ers.

Well-known and high­ly re­spect­ed co-founder of the Liv­ing Wa­ter Com­mu­ni­ty, Rhon­da Mary Main­got will re­ceive the in­au­gur­al In­spi­ra­tional Lega­cy Award, re­served for a phe­nom­e­nal woman whose life­time of ac­com­plish­ments has made an in­deli­ble mark on the na­tion­al land­scape. Main­got has ded­i­cat­ed al­most 50 years to serv­ing the needy in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean. Her out­reach in­cludes shel­ters, re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion cen­tres for sub­stance users, and pro­grammes for the home­less, ter­mi­nal­ly ill, and abused. She is al­so the founder of the Trin­i­ty Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Tele­vi­sion Net­work.

The In­spi­ra­tional Cham­pi­on of Women Award will be giv­en to Deb­o­rah Chris­tiana de Rosia, the di­rec­tor of four non-prof­its which cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for women, men, and oth­er young adults, through ed­u­ca­tion and vo­ca­tion­al train­ing.

De Rosia found­ed the Eter­nal Light Com­mu­ni­ty Vo­ca­tion­al School and oth­er fa­cil­i­ties which pro­vide care and shel­ter to bat­tered women and their chil­dren, aban­doned chil­dren and the el­der­ly.

In col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Ro­man Catholic Arch­dio­cese of Port of Spain, de Rosia leads a team of per­sons to care for preg­nant teenagers and a skills-train­ing cen­tre in Sea Lots to com­bat crime through train­ing and em­ploy­ment.

The first fe­male Pro­fes­sor of Life sci­ences at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Pro­fes­sor Ju­dith Gob­in, will re­ceive the In­spi­ra­tional Ad­vo­cate Award for her sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to ma­rine bi­ol­o­gy and en­vi­ron­men­tal ad­vo­ca­cy in the Caribbean.

Pro­fes­sor Gob­in played a key role in the 2023 his­toric ocean pro­tec­tion treaty and has pub­lished ex­ten­sive­ly on ma­rine bio­di­ver­si­ty.

Her lead­er­ship in con­ser­va­tion and ma­rine sci­ence ed­u­ca­tion un­der­scores her se­lec­tion for this award.

Ako­sua Dar­d­aine-Ed­wards found­ed the Ni­Na Foun­da­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go, which sup­ports girls and young women tran­si­tion­ing from the St Jude’s School, will re­ceive the In­spi­ra­tional Emerg­ing Leader Award. Ako­sua’s com­mit­ment to this cause has brought sta­bil­i­ty and pos­i­tive in­flu­ence to the lives of hun­dreds of young women and girls, em­pow­er­ing them with re­silience, lead­er­ship skills, and em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties.

IWFTT launched its in­au­gur­al In­spi­ra­tional Women Awards in 2022 and thus far the fol­low­ing out­stand­ing women have been recog­nised and cel­e­brat­ed: For­mer First La­dy, Za­lay­har Has­sanali, at­tor­ney, Lynette See­baran-Suite, UWI Pro­fes­sor Emeri­ta Rho­da Red­dock, ac­tivist, Di­ana Ma­habir-Wy­att, UWI Pro­fes­sor, Rose-Marie Belle An­toine and artist Ani­ka Plow­den-Corentin.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cor­po­rate sec­tor has en­dorsed the IWFTT In­spi­ra­tional Women Awards pro­gramme and this year, the coun­try’s two ma­jor banks, name­ly Re­pub­lic Bank Lim­it­ed and First Cit­i­zens Bank, have demon­strat­ed their sup­port of the ad­vance­ment of women through their plat­inum spon­sor­ship for a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year. Oth­er top com­pa­nies are al­so back­ing the pro­gramme as gold, sil­ver, and bronze part­ners.

The In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Fo­rum Trinidad and To­ba­go (IWFTT) com­pris­es a com­mu­ni­ty of women lead­ers from a range of pro­fes­sions and sec­tors. It was es­tab­lished in 2014 and is a mem­ber of the glob­al In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Fo­rum (IWF), a net­work of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 7,800 ac­com­plished women lead­ers from thir­ty-three coun­tries on six con­ti­nents. The core pur­pose of IWF and IWFTT, is to recog­nise, cel­e­brate and con­nect ac­com­plished women lead­ers, while ac­cel­er­at­ing the emer­gence of the next gen­er­a­tion of fe­male trail­blaz­ers, by cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for those in­di­vid­u­als who are still build­ing their ca­reers and busi­ness­es, to ac­cess a unique, di­verse, in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty of fe­male thought lead­ers and game chang­ers.