Five years after launching its signature awards program to celebrate outstanding female changemakers, the International Women’s Forum of Trinidad and Tobago (IWFTT) has announced three distinguished honorees set to receive recognition at its upcoming September Inspirational Women Awards (IWA) Gala. The ceremony will take place September 29 at Port of Spain’s Hyatt Regency Trinidad, shining a spotlight on three women who have driven transformative progress across human rights advocacy, scientific research, and marine conservation.
This year’s gala carries the theme “The Power of Possibility: Celebrating Five Years of Women Who Inspire Change”, a framing that IWFTT President Lisa Agard says aligns perfectly with the work of this year’s awardees. In an official statement announcing the honorees, Agard emphasized that the selection was intentional: these three dynamic, deeply committed women have delivered tangible, lasting change for communities both across the Caribbean and around the globe.
Leading the group of honorees is Roberta Clarke, a veteran human rights defender and gender equality advocate who will receive the Inspirational Champion of Women award. A trained lawyer and social justice activist, Clarke has built a decades-long international career advancing gender-equitable policy with the United Nations, where she led the UN Women Caribbean Office, oversaw the organization’s Libya program, and served as regional director for East and Southern Africa as well as Asia and the Pacific. In these roles, she worked to embed gender-responsive policy and practice into national and regional development frameworks across multiple continents.
Clarke has also held landmark leadership roles in inter-American human rights: she was elected as a commissioner to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) by the Organization of American States (OAS) General Assembly, and later went on to serve as the commission’s president. She also held the role of IACHR rapporteur for the rights of women, LGBTI persons, and human rights defenders, where she pushed to strengthen legal protections for marginalized groups across the Americas. Holding a Master of Studies in international human rights law from the University of Oxford, a Bachelor of Laws from the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus, and a Master of Arts in sociology from Canada’s York University, Clarke currently chairs Trinidad and Tobago’s Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
The Inspirational Advocate Award will go to Professor Christine Carrington, a molecular geneticist and virologist with more than 30 years of pioneering research experience focused on infectious diseases. Based at The University of the West Indies St. Augustine Campus, Carrington is a Chaconia Medal Gold recipient, an honor that recognizes her outstanding contributions to national development. She holds a Bachelor of Science in biotechnology from King’s College London, a PhD in molecular virology from the Institute of Cancer Research, and a postgraduate degree from the University of London.
Carrington’s research centers on unpacking the evolutionary and ecological drivers that shape the emergence, spread, and persistence of viruses, with a specific focus on vector-borne and zoonotic RNA viruses. At the height of the global COVID-19 pandemic, she designed and led the landmark Covid-19 IMPACT project, which built the first local whole-genome sequencing capacity in Trinidad and Tobago and provided critical genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 variants for 17 Caribbean nations while local and regional public health bodies developed their own in-country capabilities. She is currently leading the development of the new One Health Molecular Epidemiology and Genomics (EDGe) Centre at The UWI St. Augustine Campus.
Rounding out the group of honorees is Dr. Diva Amon, an emerging Caribbean leader in marine conservation who will be recognized for her groundbreaking work studying deep-sea and high-sea ecosystems. Amon, a marine biologist with a PhD in ocean and earth science from the University of Southampton, holds research affiliations with the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory at the University of California Santa Barbara and The UWI St. Augustine Campus. Her work focuses on expanding scientific understanding of understudied deep-ocean ecosystems and documenting how human activity impacts these vast, fragile environments.
Earlier this year, Amon made history as the lead of the “Deep Wonders of T&T and the High Seas” expedition, the first-ever locally led deep-sea research mission in Trinidad and Tobago’s history, and the largest expedition of its kind the country has hosted. The mission successfully mapped and surveyed previously undocumented ecosystems and species in waters surrounding Trinidad and Tobago.
Tickets for the 2024 IWA Gala are available to the public; interested attendees can request more information by emailing IWFTTAD@gmail.com or visiting the IWFTT official website at https://iwftt.org.