...recommended introduction of the award from the Women Agents of Change initiative it was meant to recognise the contributions to advancement of women and the mandate of gender equality 

--  Dr Kris Rampersad, Gender Empowerment Specialist/Consultant

No medal for development of women at national awards - Trinidad and Tobago Newsday: 

AT this year’s national awards ceremony on Republic Day on Sunday, no one was awarded the Medal for the Development of Women, raising questions in the minds of some members...

News

No medal for development of women at national awards

Sean Douglas

 Tuesday 26 September 2023

Dr Kris Rampersad and former President Paula-Mae Weekes at the 2018 national awards ceremony. - Office of the President

AT this year's national awards ceremony on Republic Day on Sunday, no one was awarded the Medal for the Development of Women, raising questions in the minds of some members of the public.

Office of the President sources told Newsday on Sunday their only role was to host the event by way of Her Excellency Christine Kangaloo and the provision of President's House. The selection of awardees was done by an awards committee chaired by Chief Justice Ivor Archie.

The Office of President website said the award is for "any person for outstanding contribution to the development of women’s rights and issues."

It may be awarded in gold, silver or bronze in accordance with the assessed value of the service rendered, up to a maximum of ten awards in any one year.

Contacted by Newsday, Network of Women's NGOs former head Dr Kris Rampersad congratulated all recipients and especially the women awardees.

"I am not sure why no award was given for the category of the Medal for the Development of Women. As you may recall when we recommended introduction of the award from the Women Agents of Change initiative it was meant to recognise the contributions to advancement of women and the mandate of gender equality.

"We have seen over the years that there were shifts in it being awarded in some instances to women or groups whose work was not necessarily focussed on development of women." She had originally advocated to establish a women's award.

A deficit still persists in the numbers of women receiving national awards in other categories, said Rampersad, who received the National Award for the Development of Women (gold) for contributions to advancement of women and journalism in 2018 and is now an international development specialist.

“While we have seen increased focus on the role of women and the drive for gender equality that work is by no means over.

"What we do need is for the many women who are benefiting from our tireless efforts and are occupying higher places in management and other positions including in the office of the President, Parliament and elsewhere to ensure that equality remains at the top of developmental agenda with targeted actions to achieve this.

“The work in relation to gender equality is by no means over and in fact we have only just begun."

She said the Women Agents of Change initiative has now been absorbed into the development work of the UN and other international bodies.

Rampersad concluded to Newsday, "Perhaps it is best that you get from the awards committee if it felt that there were no women deserving of the award this year or why none was awarded. There is certainly need for rededication to advancing the work to bridge gender gaps and build on the achievements we have made to date as well as to concerted address the persistent and systemised dimensions of the gender gap that is inhibiting progress and change."

For more on gender empowerment and how you can support development of knowledge archives visit https://krisrampersad.com/

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Cultures Endangered in Digital Age Reengineering Education to Retrieve Legacies

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Civic empowerment Community engagement This is my story: One Night To Bloom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuFZiWN2cGg don’t Forget To Subscribe to my channels:

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Impact the Future International Women's Day All Issues are Women's Issues

Theme of This Year's Women TechMakers' Ambassadors International Women's Day is Impact the Future. That may be not be an easy task if we do not understand why we are where we are at, the journey, the struggles, the triumphs! Support digitisation and productions in new multimedia forms of our extensive archives of the development agenda on women, culture, media, agriculture, environment, heritage of Latin America and the Caribbean and  the Global South. After all, All Issues are Women's Issues!

Let's partner to enhance digital education, refresh the digital culture with new directions for the Global South!

Visit www.krisrampersad.com for more.

 

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Find out more at Remembering the Silver Fox at the GloCaL Knowledge Pot

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Demokrissy takes a close look to the socio-cultural, historical and geopolitical factors in this dispute. Go to the link below for details. 

Brokering the Border Wars – LAC limbo on barbed lines of demarcation as Venezuela-Guyana dispute heightens
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Brokering the Border Wars – LAC limbo on barbed lines of demarcation as Venezuela-Guyana dispute heightens
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AI and I Reengeneering Education Culture Media in the Digital Age

 

On World Folklore Day I follow an invitation from a search engine to explore information about the day and folklore. It takes me down a rabbit hole of the representations and misrepresentations of information by AI, the new digital tool now widely available in the internet landscape. This takes a close look at how AI is altering that landscape. it is aimed to inform and build critical awareness around uses of AI across sectors.

In this post I look closely at how AI is misrepresenting and misinterpretation information which it shares along with semblance of 'moodiness' aligned to attitudes that are unnerving in a technical environment.

See post: https://krisrampersad.com/abused-by-a-moody-angry-ai-on-world-folklore-day-taking-on-the-tech-giants/

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Heritage Educator Dr Kris Rampersad in an alien landscape on World Folklore Day declares Open I is Not Open-Minded AI -  distortion of information in the digital age Reengineering Education Retooling all sectors for the Digital Age

Surviving AI Digital Deletion Cultural Restoration Reengineering Education ...

Surviving AI Digital Deletion and Cultural Restoration Reengineering Culture Education & Media  for the Digital Age with Dr Kris Rampersad. More at www.krisrampersad.com.  Subscribe youtube https://youtu.be/p9xZ4SSfD5g

 

Towards new Caribbean Culture of Democracy

 Can Guyana lead the region on political reform too following Commission enquiry report on election fraud? Read more

https://krisrampersad.com/towards-changing-guyanas-the-caribbeans-culture-of-democracy-about-that-elections-commission-of-inquiry/

R

Dear Lizzie, RIP Letters To Lizzie Colonial Legacy

 

Stories from inside Commonwealth processes, as a witness to the tumultuous currents swirling at its centre threatening to burst its banks in the processes of empowering and tooling Commonwealth civil society to utilise the access afforded by new media to augment their voices while participating and provoking the Commonwealth’s interrogation of itself over the past two decades Letters to Lizzie morphs from lilbits Tweets in 120 characters to the MultiMedia MicroEpic.

From her birth with television and electronic media to the age of new media, the Legacy of Queen Elizabeth reaches beyond the colonial legacy of her ancestry,

More 

https://krisrampersad.com/dear-lizzie-rip-colonial-legacy-in-lilbits-letters-to-lizzie-morphs-into-multimedia-microepic/

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ__KsqxcJM

Race for Respect in the Era of Augmented Reality on Social Media New 'R's' in literacy Happy World Literacy Day

 An advertisement by a bank sparks a letter to an editor which is published in a newspaper, released on social media and stirs and sparks a virtual racial war.

The fingers point now to a cycle of blame: Who's at fault?

Is it that the advertising agency and the bank were insensitive to the deeply entrenched racism and other historical hurts festering in the society? Was the media fuelling racism to sell a few to a gullible public who is sure to jump at the ongoing race-baiting, consciously or subconsciously perpetrated on a society that cannot rise out of the scars of the past? Each may have very sound and solid justifications on its actions, but the reality is that media, culture and gender sensitive literacy have moved to the forefront of the challenge for social literacy, virtually replacing the traditional three R's with a new one - Respect!

And we are way past the time to begin to unravel and rethread the flaying and flawed social fabric.

It points to the challenge for social, cultural, gneder sensitive literacy and re-educating the education setor ...

Read more at this link 

UNESCO supports Trinidad's challenge to World Bank classifications of island states - Caribbean Times News

UNESCO supports Trinidad’s challenge to World Bank classifications of island states

OCTOBER 21, 2015 BY EDITOR IN OECS & CARICOM, REGIONAL, WORLD

    

PARIS – UNESCO’s Finance Commission has unanimously supported the call to challenge the development categorisation of countries according to gross domestic product (GDP) tabled by Trinidad and Tobago’s representative to the UNESCO Executive Board, Dr Kris Rampersad.

Rampersad advocated revision of the GDP basis for economic categorisation of states into small, medium and large categories promoted by global financial organisations such as the World Bank, noting it does not reflect the tremendous disparities in income, levels of poverty and inequalities within countries. It is part of a draft resolution proposed by Caribbean representatives and global SIDS with support from others for UNESCO to develop a focussed strategy of programme implementation and means of financing and resourcing an action plan for SIDS.

It requests that UNESCO’s Institute of Statistics collate the relevant data for phased presentation to the Executive Board, “taking account of the vulnerabilities linked to limitations of size and resources economies of scale, indebtedness, external economic shocks and natural hazard occurrences and resources.” 

Support for the resolution came from not only small island developing states (SIDS) of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans but also ‘developed’ island states as the UK as well as countries like the United States, Sweden, and China who recognised the place of SIDS in achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and to ‘the future of the planet.’

UNESCO’s Finance Commission (FA) is charged with examining budgetary provisions of the organisation. It is one of two commissions, with the Programme and External Relations Commission (PX), which is co-chaired by Dr Rampersad with the representative of Mexico. 

“This has implications for not only on SIDS but all of the developing world, Unless these misrepresentations are addressed we are likely to face the same pitfalls in meeting the United Nation’s new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),” said Rampersad, an independent development educator/consultant who has been promoting culture-centred approaches to development as the UNESCO-trained heritage facilitator for the Caribbean and Trinidad and Tobago’s Representative to the Executive Board, 2013-2017. 

She noted that persistent poverty and other glossed-over internal challenges have hampered achievement of the Millennium Goals. She observed that the GDP classifications have also restricted access to technical and other resources by civil society and others working to redress the imbalances at poverty, gender disparity and other inequalities at ground level.

Trinidad and Tobago became a member of the UNESCO Executive Board with the highest number of votes among the Group of Latin American and Developing Countries (GRULAC) at UNESCO elections of 2013. New members will be admitted to the 58-member Executive Board following elections carded for the upcoming UNESCO General Conference in November 2015, where all Executive Board resolutions will be finalised and adopted. (Caribbean News Now).UNESCO supports Trinidad's challenge to WB classifications of island states - Caribbean Times News

Happy International Girls in ICT Day What a turbulent journey it has been

 Happy International Girls in ICT Day What a turbulent journey it has been trying to straddle the spheres of media, culture and education for a gender sensitive world. 

The journey took me through the benchmark World Summits on Women and Development, Environment and Development and Infomation Society that shaped directions for the synergies needed for recovery and resuscitation into the Post Pandemic Planet 

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https://krisrampersad.com/salute-to-girls-in-ict-o-brave-new-world-that-there-be-creatives-in-the-tech-mix/

ABC teacher meets her author-student

By The Caribbean Camera Inc. on May 17, 2018

Olive Sinanan (right) meets Dr.Kris Rampersad, , journalist and author of LiTTscapes – Landscapes of Fiction

An elderly woman stunned guests at the Annual Mothers’ Day and Arrival Day celebrations of the Zoomers’ Association of Trinidad and Tobago ( ZATTIC) in Mississauga on Sunday.

Dr Kris Rampersad, a Trinidad-based journalist and author was speaking about her efforts at ” developing literary and  heritage sectors  and creating global connections with Caribbean groups” when the elderly woman stood up and interrupted her.

“Excuse me. I taught at St Julien Presbyterian School. I taught you at St Julien,” the elderly woman said. She then walked up and embraced Dr Rampersad who exclaimed in surprise: “Miss Olive. It is so good to see you!”

“I cannot stay long. I left my family, my children and grandchildren to come here today to see you. I am so proud of you, my darling,” the  woman said to Dr Rampersad.

“This is the woman who taught me to read,” Dr Rampersad told  the audience which burst out in loud applause.

Olive Sinanan, now 80 years old. lives in Toronto.

In her address, Dr Rampersad explained how the early thirst for reading material which was scarce when she was growing up in rural Trinidad has motivated much of her actions even as a journalist, and later as a writer and as an educator.

Dr Rampersad will be at Windies Restaurant in Scarborough on Sunday to discuss ” cross cultural connections and opportunities for the creative sectors.

To Book LiTTributes, LiTTours, LiTTeas and other special events, order books or other materials make contact 

For more information .visit LiTTscapes on Facebook, @lolleaves on Twitter or email lolleaves@gmail.com.ABC teacher meets her author-student | The Caribbean Camera

 National Award Winner Oliver Chapman provided the sound track for my biopic, One Night To Bloom in the innovative new creative genre the MultiMedia MicroEpic.

As the themesong of the first television series I wrote, the award winning original Cross Country series. It was the first local programme to occupy top spot on prime time TV produced by Dale Kolasingh of AVM Television. Here's how the Cross Country themesong became the sound track of my life... read more Sound Track of My Life

Break The Bias International Women's Day 2022 Global Gender Specialist Dr Kris Rampersad on MultiCultural Television

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As I write, homes a cross the diaspora, not the least in the Caribbean too, are belting out the immortal voice of this iconic singer.  Can we assess her reach into the multicultural diaspora systems, iIndipop, Chutney Music, Indian music.

The Nightingale took our breaths away now Covid takes hers diaspora tribute to the evergreen Lata Mangeshwar and connections to Indipop and other revolutionary cross and cultural cultural currents

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