GIU – Montserrat on Sunday hosts its inaugural National Honours and Awards Ceremony.
The event, originated and coordinated out of the Premier’s Office, will be held on Sunday evening from 5 p.m. at the Montserrat Cultural Centre.
A number of awards will be presented to persons and organisations for their ‘selfless contribution to the island’.
Montserrat’s Premier Reuben Meade in underlining the national, social and cultural significance of the event to the national psyche, bills it as an achievement “…where we as a people have finally gotten to the stage where we are saying we are not waiting on the Queen (Queen Elizabeth the Second) to determine who gets an award in Montserrat, our own people will do that ourselves.”
Ten awards will be presented in Sunday’s ceremony, nine of them to individuals and the other to an organisation.
Interviewed by ZJB/Radio Montserrat many people welcomed the idea with most asking “why has it taken so long?”
The view expressed most often reflected that “it’s always better when your own people appreciate you” and “it encourages people to do more for their country”.
The Montserrat National Honours and Awards Ceremony is being coordinated by the Office of the Premier.
Mr Meade has stressed that: “It is something to say to Montserrat and Montserratians, we have our national song, we have our own national motto and we have our national awards.”
The Montserrat national song is ‘Motherland’ and the national motto is ‘A people of excellence, molded by nature, nurtured by God’.
