Outstanding women to be honoured
In line with the Women’s Week motto of “Women: Equal Partners in Belize’s Development,” on Thursday night, eight women will be honoured for the contributions they have made to their organisations and community. This afternoon one of those Outstanding Women shared her story with News Five’s Kendra Griffith.
Kendra Griffith, Reporting
Meet forty-eight year old Hortence Augustine.
She is wife, a mother of four, and has been employed in the human services profession for seventeen years: first at the Princess Royal Youth Hostel and now as a foster mother at the Dorothy Menzies Child Care Centre.
Hortence Augustine, Foster Mother, Dorothy Menzies Child Care Centre
“I’ve stuck with it because I love, I love working with children. I love children. I know what I went through. I can sympathise with these children, empathise with them in what they are going through so I know that I can make a difference with them.”
On Thursday night, Augustine will be honoured as an Outstanding Woman.
Hortence Augustine
“It makes me feel good and it makes me feel that I have been recognised for the work that I am doing.”
But she is being recognised not only for her longevity in the field, but also because she succeeded in spite of many obstacles, including domestic abuse by her ex-husband.
Hortence Augustine
“I could remember going to family court, I could remember even before going to family court, going to the police station, going three o’clock in the morning, coming home four o’clock in the morning, have to report to my work for six in the morning and nobody knew what was happening with me. I could remember one time I went to the police station and I told the police officer what had happened to me and he said, oh miss that is your husband and I cannot do anything about that. That’s when I said, oh you cannot do anything? Well I am gonna show you that I can do something about it.”
Augustine exited the relationship but says it wasn’t easy.
Hortence Augustine
“At that time the system really wasn’t helping, you would have given up very easily. Now it’s much difference with all this domestic violence thing coming onboard it’s much, much different. You can go in and you get assistance. It is something that you have to want to get out of it. It doesn’t come easy. It’s a big fight, it’s a big struggle, but you have to want to come out of it, you have to be strong, you have a do a lot of praying.”
And so it was with good reason that Augustine’s philosophy is, “You can’t put a black woman down.”
Hortence Augustine
“I was given to my grandmother when I was seventeen days old, I started working at a tender age of twelve. I learned to be responsible, I knew if I got anything from somebody I had to pay a price for it, it doesn’t matter how small it is. I knew that if I wasn’t being responsible I knew what would have happened to me and I wanted to fight, I wanted to be here, I wanted to struggle, I wanted to make somebody of myself.”
Kendra Griffith reporting for News Five.
The other women to be honoured at the Outstanding Women Awards Ceremony are Deputy Commissioner of Police Maureen Leslie, youth advocate Karen Cain, Human Services employee Pearl Smith, Secretary of the Women’s Commission Jennifer Smith, Kriol activist and B.F.L.A. board member Myrna Manzanares, WIN-Belize volunteer Dorla Ferguson, and career public servant, Sandra Hall. Two organisations, B.F.L.A. and the Dangriga-based POWA, will also be acknowledged for their work with women. The ceremony gets underway Thursday night at seven at the Bliss Centre for the Performing Arts.
