Clay­ton Clarke

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo says cel­e­brat­ing the work done by women should not be tak­en for grant­ed, and that women over the years have not got­ten their due ac­knowl­edge­ment.

De­liv­er­ing the keynote ad­dress at the In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Fo­rum Trinidad and To­ba­go’s (IWFTT) Fourth In­spi­ra­tional Women Awards Gala at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel in Port-of-Spain on Tues­day, Kan­ga­loo said shin­ing the light on the achieve­ments of women would help break the tra­di­tion­al views of gen­der roles.

“Cel­e­brat­ing ac­com­plished women, in the way that this awards cer­e­mo­ny does, al­so pro­vides role mod­els for younger gen­er­a­tions,” she said.

“See­ing women suc­ceed in di­verse fields broad­ens the sense of what’s pos­si­ble, help­ing girls and young women as­pire to lead­er­ship and in­no­va­tion. High­light­ing women’s achieve­ments al­so ac­tive­ly dis­man­tles gen­der stereo­types, show­ing that women can and do ex­cel in tra­di­tion­al­ly male-dom­i­nat­ed fields and at all lev­els of de­ci­sion-mak­ing.”

She added, “Recog­nis­ing and ho­n­our­ing women’s ac­com­plish­ments is far more than a sym­bol­ic ges­ture. As im­por­tant a ges­ture as this is, women’s con­tri­bu­tions to so­ci­ety have his­tor­i­cal­ly been over­looked or even min­imised.

“When women’s or­gan­i­sa­tions high­light the achieve­ments of women, they coun­ter­act and they re­dress this his­tor­i­cal in­vis­i­bil­i­ty. They make women’s work and lead­er­ship vis­i­ble in ar­eas where they’ve been un­der-rep­re­sent­ed, such as in the ar­eas of sci­ence, busi­ness, pol­i­tics, med­i­cine, and the arts, just to name a few.”

Kan­ga­loo show­ered praise on the IWFTT for reach­ing its ten-year mile­stone.

She said, “This year, the IWFTT cel­e­brates its tenth an­niver­sary. It is al­so es­pe­cial­ly mean­ing­ful be­cause of all of the im­por­tant prac­ti­cal and so­cial pur­pos­es this award cer­e­mo­ny serves, on­ly some of which I have just out­lined. It is al­so es­pe­cial­ly mean­ing­ful be­cause this cer­e­mo­ny is hap­pen­ing less than a week af­ter the coun­try cel­e­brat­ed nine out­stand­ing women at our re­cent­ly con­clud­ed Re­pub­lic Day Na­tion­al Awards.”

Dr Cather­ine Minto-Bain, Suzan Lakhan-Bap­tiste and Maya Kir­ti Nanan were ho­n­oured for their work.

Minto Bain pi­o­neered work in fer­til­i­ty med­i­cine, Lakhan-Bap­tiste de­vot­ed her life to the preser­va­tion of tur­tles in T&T, and Nanan is the founder and di­rec­tor of the Autism Sib­lings and Friends Net­work.

IWFTT pres­i­dent Lisa Agard paid trib­ute to the awardees, say­ing, “They are lead­ers, ad­vo­cates, men­tors and vi­sion­ar­ies. They are every­day he­roes who demon­strate that lead­er­ship is not con­fined to ti­tles but is lived through ser­vice, sac­ri­fice, and in­tegri­ty.”

Guest speak­er and for­mer IWF Glob­al pres­i­dent, Allyson May­nard-Gib­son, re­mind­ed the women present of the pur­pose that led to the for­ma­tion of the IWF by Eli­nor Guggen­heimer in the Unit­ed States in 1974.

“The goal was to cre­ate a new women’s net­work, one that brings women across sec­tors to sup­port each oth­er both pro­fes­sion­al­ly and per­son­al­ly,” she said.

“Your founders chal­lenged the sta­tus quo, opened doors, and most im­por­tant­ly, cre­at­ed space where women can rise to­geth­er.”