Thursday, December 31 – Bernadine Louis, Maurice Donovan, Dereck Fahie, the Jost Van Dyke Preservation Society and Rosemary Delaney Smith are the winners of the 2009 Deputy Governor’s History Research Awards.
Bernadine Louis along with with Maurice Donovan submitted “From Ebo Land, West Africa to Kingstown, Tortola”; Derek Fahie submitted “Nature’s Little Secrets 2010 Calendar”; Jost Van Dyke Preservation Society submitted “Cultural Traditions of Jost Van Dyke” and Rosemary Delaney Smith submitted “Zephera Adina Smith—A Strong Woman of Carrot Bay”.
Deputy Governor Mrs. V. Inez Archibald presented the awards at a luncheon held recently in honour of the winners and thanked facilitator of the History Research Workshop Dr. Patricia Turnbull for investing time and effort in the endeavour. The workshop was held to assist persons in developing their research skills.
The Deputy Governor told the attendees, “Preserving who we are as a people comes down to issues we overlook and take for granted. We are under obligation to ensure that nobody comes to the Virgin Islands and define who we are as a people. It is our purpose to preserve our history and heritage for our children.”
The programme was open to the public under the theme, “General Topics of the Virgin Islands History” and was chosen to accommodate a high level of participation as it embraces a wide range of topics.
Chief Records Management Officer Mrs. Verna Penn Moll told the Department of Information and Public Relations that, “The Archives Unit is committed to providing stimulus, encouragement and opportunity, which would prepare Virgin Islands’ citizens to write our own history. We must improve that creative aspect of nation-building. The work of these participants is already adding to our archival resources and our national bibliography.
Mrs. Moll, added, “We are appealing to the wider community to become involved in the Deputy Governor’s Research Programme. We must become involved, in one way or the other, in unearthing the facts and finding out more about ourselves by researching the history and sharing it with others. The unit is already thinking of next year’s theme and how we plan to further involve the wider community in the programme.”
The History Research Award Programme was instituted in 2007 as an initiative of the Archives Unit to commemorate the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade and to promote, encourage and recognise local history research in the Virgin Islands.
British Virgin Islands News