Latest update January 20th, 2025 4:00 AM
Guyanese entrepreneur awarded Anthony N Sabga Caribbean Awards for Excellence
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Caption: From left: William Andrew Boyle of Guyana (Entrepreneurship), Noel and Chevaughn Joseph of Trinidad & Tobago (Public & Civic Contributions), Kei Miller of Jamaica (Arts & Letters), Dr Adesh Ramsubhag of Trinidad & Tobago (Science & Technology)
Founder of the Eureka Medical Laboratory (EML) William Andrew Boyle, has been awarded the Anthony S Sabga Caribbean Awards for Excellence, in the field of entrepreneurship, at its first award ceremony to be staged in Jamaica on Saturday at the Pegasus hotel. The ceremony also included a performance by famed Jamaican singer, Tessanne Chin, who rendered her song “Try”.
In accepting the award, Boyle recalled his origins in a remote region of Berbice, and urged the audience to “don’t forget how to dream”, as dreams had brought him to the success he enjoys. Boyle’s mother was present along with large contingents of their families.
In the late 1980s, working for the University of Guyana, and at the Georgetown Hospital Tropical Diseases Laboratory as a medical microbiologist, Mr. Boyle noticed the lack of adequate and high-quality medical laboratory services in his country. To meet this need, the EML was formed in 1995.
The Caribbean Awards have been in existence since 2005, and this was its tenth ceremony. The programme was initiated by the late Trinidadian entrepreneur, Dr Anthony N Sabga in 2005. Laureates in the areas of arts and letters, entrepreneurship, science and technology, and public and civic contributions are given half-million TT dollars, a medal and citation.
The winners are nominated by country committees and selected by a regional panel chaired by Sir Shridath Ramphal, and containing representatives from all the territories covered: Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados, the OECS and Trinidad & Tobago.
Mr. A. Norman Sabga, who succeeded his father as patron of the awards, is Chairman of the ANSA McAL Group of companies and the ANSA McAL Foundation, which hosts the ceremony, spoke of the group’s commitment to continue the initiative. He also lauded the resiliency and determination of the Jamaican people, and expressed his great pleasure to host a ceremony in that country.
This year’s laureates included Jamaican Kei Miller, a poet and novelist who has won prestigious prizes, like the OCM Bocas Prize in 2017 in Trinidad, and the Forward Prize for poetry in 2014 in the UK. Three Jamaicans, Prof Terrence Forrester, Monsignor Gregory Ramkissoon, and Mrs. Claudette Richardson-Pious had been inducted in 2006 and 2008.
Miller, in accepting the awarded, spoke of his awakening as a writer in the pages of Trinidadian Earl Lovelace’s novel, The Wine of Astonishment, where a preacher realized his duty to guide his flock, after their religion was criminalized by the colonial authorities.
“I was born in 1996 in the pages of this novel,” said Miller, which he said had shown him the duty of writers: to remind people of who they are.
He also mentioned a small controversy over an essay he recently published in the Jamaican publication, ‘Pree’, and the criticism that erupted. His lesson from this, he said, was a reminder that part of the writer’s duty included “love”.
In accepting the prize, Trinidadian Chevaughn Joseph spoke her foundation being her “mission from God,” to bring comfort to sick and afflicted children. The JBF intends to begin its mission of taking its foundation regional in Jamaica.
Another 2018 laureate was Trinidadian geneticist, Dr Adesh Ramsubhag.
Ramsubhag spoke of his journey from a rural agricultural village in south Trinidad to being a UWI geneticist. He is now on the verge of making breakthrough discoveries in novel pharmaceuticals, and new antibiotics, and he urged that more emphasis be given to scientific research.
In accepting their awards, all the laureates expressed gratitude and admiration for the regional scope of the awards scheme, and all pledged to continue their efforts on a regional scale, which the awards had given them the platform and the resources to do.
These inductions bring the number of people recognised by the ANSA Caribbean Awards for Excellence to 35.
The award ceremony was broadcast throughout the region.
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