Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les@guardian.co.tt

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine says To­ba­go has a rep­u­ta­tion prob­lem and the is­land must fix it.

Speak­ing at the To­ba­go Day Awards at the Shaw Park Cul­tur­al Com­plex in Scar­bor­ough on Thurs­day night, Au­gus­tine said To­bag­o­ni­ans need to con­front the grow­ing be­lief that the is­land’s peo­ple are “in­do­lent” and push to re­build a cul­ture of hard work, uni­ty and pride. He said this must be­come a se­ri­ous na­tion­al project for To­ba­go.

Au­gus­tine told the au­di­ence the awardees rep­re­sent the re­al To­ba­go. He said their work shows the world what To­bag­o­ni­ans are ca­pa­ble of, de­scrib­ing their achieve­ments as “’Bago best, Bago bril­liance, Bago blood­line.”

He en­cour­aged younger To­bag­o­ni­ans not to lim­it them­selves and to aim high­er than what­ev­er they be­lieve is pos­si­ble.

He al­so used the cer­e­mo­ny to re­mind To­bag­o­ni­ans of their his­to­ry of re­silience and com­mu­ni­ty spir­it, say­ing those qual­i­ties must guide the is­land for­ward, es­pe­cial­ly at a time when the theme of To­ba­go Day is “One To­ba­go, one Peo­ple, One Des­tiny.”

Twen­ty-six peo­ple and or­gan­i­sa­tions were ho­n­oured across pub­lic ser­vice, cul­ture, sports, ed­u­ca­tion, health, en­tre­pre­neur­ship, com­mu­ni­ty work and the di­as­po­ra dur­ing the event.

The To­ba­go Medal of Ho­n­our Gold went to for­mer chief jus­tice Ivor Archie for his decades in pub­lic ser­vice, Sir Ed­win Car­ring­ton for his re­gion­al lead­er­ship, vet­er­an ed­u­ca­tor Lin­coln Warn­er, and Bish­op’s High School, which cel­e­brat­ed more than a cen­tu­ry of ser­vice.

Among the Sil­ver Medal re­cip­i­ents were Zel­ma Cowie for ed­u­ca­tion and com­mu­ni­ty work, en­tre­pre­neur Claude Benoit, pub­lic ser­vant Es­ther Ben­jamin, cul­tur­al ad­vo­cate Opuk­wu Wari, sport­ing fig­ures John Pol­lard and An­tho­ny Williams, and pub­lic ser­vice leader Glo­ria Moore Car­ring­ton.

The Bronze Medal of Ho­n­our went to foot­ball star Kenya “Yaya” Cord­ner, crick­eter Al­ston Daniel, youth leader Samuel East­man, pub­lic ser­vant Jan­ice Har­ris, farmer Mitchi­son Nep­tune, com­mu­ni­ty ad­vo­cate Carl­ton Phillips, nurse Ly­dia Phillips, ear­ly-child­hood ed­u­ca­tor Kath­leen Kwashi, and Mc­Coney’s Egg Farm Lim­it­ed.

Dr Nathaniel Duke re­ceived the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Award of Mer­it, while Samuel Clark col­lect­ed the Di­as­po­ra Award.

The Chief Sec­re­tary’s Award went to two young achiev­ers – pan arranger Kush Ram­sey and tourism ad­vo­cate Jo­lay St John.

Au­gus­tine said the awardees show To­ba­go’s strength and spir­it at a time when the is­land needs to re­dis­cov­er its con­fi­dence.

He said the next step is for To­bag­o­ni­ans to ho­n­our that lega­cy by work­ing hard­er, sup­port­ing each oth­er, and re­build­ing the is­land’s im­age from the ground up.