(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) An outstanding Jamaican woman will be awarded the Caribbean Community’s Triennial Award for Women for her sterling contribution to national and regional development especially in the field of education and research.

The award will be conferred on 1 July 2008 at the Opening Ceremony of the Twenty-Ninth Meeting of the Conference of CARICOM Heads of Government, in Antigua and Barbuda.

She has for many years been at the forefront of advocacy for gender equality and equity through her teaching and research activities. She will be the second Jamaican to receive this prestigious Award and will be joining the ranks of eight other outstanding women who have received the Award since its inception in 1983.

In 1983, during a meeting of Ministers of Women's Affairs to commemorate to CARICOM’s Tenth Anniversary, it was recognized that the 1973 Treaty of Chaguaramas addressed the need to examine the position of women in the Region. Evolving out of the deliberations was the recommendation to confer an award to an outstanding CARICOM woman whose work had made a significant contribution to the socio-economic development of the Caribbean.

The first Award was made in 1984 to Ms. Nesta Patrick, national of Trinidad and Tobago. Since then, seven others have received the Award for their dedication and determination in broadening the parameters of existence for women and improving their economic, social, political, cultural and legal status. They are The late Dame Nita Barrow, national of Barbados in 1987, Dr. Peggy Antrobus, national of Grenada and citizen of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 1990; Ms. Magda Pollard, national of Guyana, 1993; Dr. Lucille Mair, national of Jamaica, 1996; Professor Joycelin Massiah, national of Guyana and citizen of Barbados, 1999; Professor Rhoda Reddock, national of Trinidad and Tobago, 2002 and Justice Desiree Bernard, national of Guyana in 2005.