Charles Kong Soo

Trinidad-born Baroness Floel­la Ben­jamin, 73, has be­come the first woman from the Caribbean to be be­stowed with one of the UK's high­est awards; the pres­ti­gious Or­der of Mer­it.

The long-stand­ing Win­drush sup­port­er and for­mer politi­cian and broad­cast­er was pre­sent­ed with the ho­n­our by King Charles III dur­ing a lunch at Buck­ing­ham Palace on No­vem­ber 24, 2022.

The award recog­nis­es dis­tin­guished ser­vice to­wards the ad­vance­ment of the arts, learn­ing, lit­er­a­ture or sci­ence.

There can on­ly be 24 mem­bers with­in the Or­der of Mer­it group at one time with some ad­di­tion­al for­eign mem­bers.

There are a very small group of peo­ple who are hon­orary mem­bers of the award.

The award was found­ed by King Ed­ward VII in 1902.

Baroness Ben­jamin has ded­i­cat­ed much of her ca­reer to cam­paign­ing and sup­port­ing char­i­ties in­clud­ing Barnar­do’s, Sick­le Cell So­ci­ety and Beat­ing Bow­el Can­cer.

She has pre­vi­ous­ly been ho­n­oured and recog­nised for her char­i­ta­ble ef­forts and was spe­cial­ly cho­sen by Queen Eliz­a­beth II to re­ceive the award be­fore her pass­ing.

Baroness Ben­jamin said "I am thrilled to be a part of this group. I would have loved for my mum and dad to be here to­day to just see the fruits of their labour and to cel­e­brate with me.

"I am one of the first black women to be in­clud­ed in the Or­der of Mer­it, the first Trinida­di­an woman, the first Caribbean woman, the first Win­drush gen­er­a­tion to be in­clud­ed, and it is ab­solute­ly in­cred­i­ble."

"We had a deep con­ver­sa­tion (with the King) about di­ver­si­ty and in­clu­sion, about all the work that he had done in the past and what he want­ed to do in the fu­ture to make our coun­try feel all-in­clu­sive, all-em­brac­ing.

"It's to cel­e­brate each oth­er's cul­ture, each oth­er's dif­fer­ences. This is to show that chil­dren, peo­ple of my gen­er­a­tion, chil­dren of the fu­ture that any­thing is pos­si­ble."