Awards Ceremony to close Women’s Month
Icilda Humes
Since the beginning of March there have been a series of activities held in commemoration of Women’s Month. The events of the past few weeks have highlighted the role of women in Belize, but there was one issue that drew public condemnation. That was the publication of an uncomplimentary photograph of a P.U.P. executive member in the government’s news paper. But to close the celebrations on a positive note, the Women’s Department has organized an annual awards ceremony to recognize the achievements of a handful of women in the household and also in the private and public sectors. According to Icilda Humes, the Director of the Women’s Department, this year’s focus is on young women and leadership.
Icilda Humes, Director, Women’s Department
“Tomorrow we’re having the sixth annual Outstanding Women’s Awards. This is something we’ve been doing for the past few years to recognize the achievements of women in Belize. The way it works is that the Women’s Department sends out invitations to its partner agencies inviting them to honor a woman of their choice. In the past we’ve seen them honor women who work within their organizations and women who work outside of their organizations doing community work throughout the country and so we provide an opportunity for them to recognize the work that these women have been doing. We have entertainment during the course of the evening and this year we’re happy to announce that the entertainment will be featuring young women. We really, really want to highlight young women’s leadership in Belize and so we felt that it was important for us to feature the talents of some of these young women so we have two fourteen year olds and an eleven year old. The eleven year old coming all the way from Corozal [is] Miss Idania Olivia who will be singing some ranchero songs for us. We also have Ms. Marilyn Vansen who is very talented when it comes to singing as well as to her guitar playing. I believe she is also involved in the National High School Karaoke Competition. And so the whole theme for tomorrow’s event is really featuring young women leadership. We’ll also be honoring two young women because we recognize that for the past years that we’ve been doing this event not many young women have been recognized and that includes us as well.”
Among the many activities that were held during Women’s Month 2011 was the sixth annual Women’s Summit which dealt with the issue of gender equity. The theme for this year’s celebrations is Women: Valuing Ourselves, Promoting Shared Responsibility.
