 and in hand let's celebrate our country the best we have to give we feel so proud to be st. lusion in paradise we live and we all have to work together to serve the land we love wherever you may roam in this world is home you're thinking of best you know and in hand let's celebrate our country the best we have to give we feel so proud to be st. lusion in paradise we live and we all have to work together to serve the land we love wherever you may roam in good morning my name is Rihanny Isidore i'll be your moderator for the next half an hour as we officially declare open the nomination period for the national awards uh investor ceremony scheduled for next year this discussion joining me will be members of the national awards committee and of course this committee is chaired by mrs morisia tomas francis also joining us are mrs malika compton and of course miss charan e-frame so the media launch is now it is live and let's discuss mrs morisia tomas francis the national awards committee what are some of the functions of this committee yes good morning viewers good morning Rihanny good morning fellow panelists and members of the media good morning i'd like to especially recognize the permanent secretary in the prime minister's office mrs ester um rigobert and of course miss louis imam louis secretary of the national awards committee thank you very much yes the national awards committee is nominated by the governor general and the committee is charged with the responsibility of participating in such an event the launch and also to sensitize the public as to how to go about nominating persons in the community who've gone over and above the call of duty to serve their fellow citizens persons who have served meritoriously and with a clean the committee has a very important role because quite apart from launching and quite apart from sensitizing we are charged with the responsibility of ensuring that we receive nominations and that the nominations are at the quality the requisite quality and when i say quality i mean that they meet the criteria for the various categories of award and that the forms the nomination forms are complete in the manner that is required such that we can adjudicate and select the best we as a committee we we were specifically selected to ensure that there is fairness in the process we have a team of illustrious individuals on the committee and if you permit me i will just let you know who the members are right away please of course as you know you've mentioned i'm chair of the committee we have a representative from the public service commission so chair of the public service commission mr cyrus reynolds is the one serving in that capacity we also have a member representing the opposition and this is in the person of miss malika compton notice she's wearing yellow this morning yes in her role of course um sharon e frame is representing the government side we also have the commissioner of police who also serves on the committee and mr wilbert king former deputy chair and also former public service commissioner so he's serving on the committee but this time around because he's not the chair of the public service commission he's representing the general public so in a sense it's a seven-member committee and i'm sorry i am i forgot my madam secretary imam louis she's secretary of the committee and it's very diverse a healthy mix of individuals from various backgrounds all in the pursuit of ensuring that there is fairness with the selectivity fairness and objectivity yes so now that the nomination process is open and this this this process is not new it's it's on an annual basis that is correct but um we can still discuss perhaps the eligibility factor so to speak what kinds of saint lucians or who are eligible to be nominated is there is there any special category of persons yes at this point in time i will invite my miss compton to go through that process sorry miss compton yes sorry okay so we're seeking all citizens of st lucia they can seek out persons who have born above and beyond throughout their communities unsung heroes to select them for those awards we first of all we have the st lucia cross it's only awarded in gold a person who has rendered distinguished and outstanding service of national importance to st lucia we have the st lucia medal of honor which may be awarded in gold and silver a person who has rendered eminent service of national importance to st lucia a person who has performed an outstanding brave a human act a person who acts of who has performed acts of bravery and hazardous circumstance we have the st lucia medal of merit which can also be awarded in gold and silver a person who has performed long and meritorious services in the arts literature science or other such fields in st lucia we have the st lucia lepeton medal which may be awarded in gold silver or bronze persons who have performed long and meritorious services to st lucia tending to promote loyal public service national welfare to inculcate and strengthen community spirit we have the national service cross and the national service medals the national service cross of the order of st lucia is called the national service cross sorry may be awarded in connection with the order only to an officer of the royal st lucia police force not below the rank of assistant superintendent an officer of the fire service not below the rank of deputy fire chief or an officer of the prison service not below the rank of deputy chief prisons officer who has rendered lawyer and devoted service beneficial to st lucia the national service medal of the order of st lucia heron called the national service medal may be awarded for outstanding and meritorious service to members of the royal st lucia police the st lucia fire services the st lucia prison services and commissioned officers or a cadet okay so those categories pretty much cover the entire society of various disciplines and you use the word that i i like the unsung heroes right so this process this nomination process does not discriminate so whether it's an individual and you can intervene and and clarify further an individual who perhaps served in a community as a gardener and and their job and their duties they've conducted themselves in a in a in a meritorious manner that person may be eligible to be nominated absolutely all right and of course including members of the services and etc okay so where can the general public access those forms okay so thank you riani for that question also i would like to say good morning to st lucia no nomination forms can be accessed on the following http governor general dot gov t dot lc slash owners dash a and d dash awards let me say that again http governor general dot gov t dot lc slash owners h o n or s dash a and d dash a w a r d s owners also we have them at accountant general's department and sub offices they can also be collected at central library and district libraries they are the general post office and district post offices also you can find them at the office of the prime minister fifth floor grayham louisie administrative building forms have been submitted as well we have already submitted those forms to the diaspora embassies and consulate offices service clubs statutory boards members of parliament and the senate ministers and constituency councils throughout st lucia so now the diaspora is also entitled to be nominated so this is not exclusive to st lucia's living in st lucia miss tomson it's not not at all not at all so every year we invite nominations not only from persons who live in st lucia but nominations from people from the diaspora and over the years we have received a number of nominations from across st lucia as well as the diaspora and the number of solutions have been so honored so today we are asking for nominations to be submitted in the usual fashion and i must tell you that we are very heartened with the increased number of nominations that we have received in recent years last year we received an unprecedented number of nominations and we took a lot of sleepless nights to go through and adjudicate on those nominations and to select we had so many we wish we could have honored everybody we had a lot of good ones however we have quotas and i think you i don't know if in her submission i don't think she mentioned the quotas but we do have some quotas that we are guided by so we can get back to the quotas but we can get back to those quotas just out of curiosity i think it's important that the general public know what the quotas are yes and before we get to the quotas so in the event that someone is nominated for example this year yes perhaps it's they were not awarded in the subsequent year is it still possible to nominate this individual again certainly and that's a very very good question um person because of the quota system that we have to comply with sometimes you have very good nominations but we are not able to fulfill all of them so we always ask the public to ensure that if the nominations do not win in one year they can resubmit the following year um some people believe that the committee will just keep the forms and adjudicate on them again in the new season but it doesn't happen that we reapply we inviting them to reapply and then mrs ifrim you mentioned that these forms can be obtained not just on the internet because not everyone is internet savvy so to speak so the average person if they so chooses a tool they can visit a library where else were some of the other locations the other locations are constituency council offices as well as um the service clubs say example the rotary club the lions club the kiwanis club all of those clubs they would have forms as well um the general the central library um well i said that already the counter general's department office of the prime minister which is at the fifth floor grayham louisie administrative building let me also say rehani that completed nomination forms must be sent in a sealed envelope addressed to the secretary national awards committee care of office of the prime minister grayham louisie administrative building waterfront castries and i also want to add that or they can also be submitted online at recognition dot gov t dot lc all nomination forms must be made on the prescribed form and all submissions must provide justification for the award proposed and must bear the name and signature of the individual making the submission now for the in the past we have received forms that they forget to put the name or they forget to sign yeah what happens then those forms will not be um accepted will be disqualified because we need all information possible both name and signature must be legible legible sorry nomination forms must be completed in the entirety okay don't leave anything out on the form remember deadline for submission of nomination forms is i think that was yeah that may be sometime in december sometime in december so the date will be the night of december around the night from december yes nominations received after the deadline will not be considered okay so we will be informing persons throughout the various media houses we will be going on and remind persons of the deadline for nomination forms etc okay now let's talk a little bit more about what's what's on those forms what sort of information if you were to nominate someone uh what sort of information will be required to be filled out on those forms okay so maybe the details of nominee you have the name of the person um surname in capital capital letters mr mr smith etc the full name in capital letters the date of birth nationality address the phone number and the email address okay and then you also have a word recommended you must tick the box of the award that you are um nominating the person for such as the senator cross senator middle of honor senator middle of merit senator little peter middle whether it's gold whether it's silver or whether it's bronze i want to jump in here and uh go to you chairperson how does the average person know which category or which which which middle category the candidate should be chosen for good question um we painstakingly go through a process to make sure we educate and sensitize the public so quite apart from this laundry we are sharing all this information we also do um road shows we go to the various media houses we go to the different communities to make sure we educate and sensitize so i want the public to know that over the coming weeks we are going to be on the various the talk show programs right talk show programs radio programs will be visiting the communities and what have you and of course uh to provide that kind of guidance absolutely if you need if you're not sure as to what what category a particular candidate may be eligible or maybe have an opportunity to to uh to be nominated in so miss comes and you the quarter sorry excuse me just to add the nomination form itself on the back of it provides the categories the classes and the the criteria for each so it's on the back of the form so the general public is so guided in addition to the information that we will be sharing you mentioned quarters earlier how many persons or how many uh nominations are acceptable per category okay so we have the st lusia cross the governor general may award the st lusia cross to no more than three persons in one year we have the medal of honor the governor general may award the st lusia medal of honor to no more than three persons in any one class we have the medal of merit and it's the same as the medal of honor there's no more than three persons in that class then we have the le pito medal it's no more than three person in each one class because we have three classes in that set up here we have the national service cross no more than one person in any one year and we have the national service medal no more than four persons in any one year okay that's all right that that put shed some clarity but that has nothing to do with the volume of applications or nominations you have to absolutely so you recall i mentioned earlier on that we we've been receiving trim i think last year we received almost a hundred if not more than that yes and of course you heard the quote it's not a lot it's not a lot and persons sometimes who nominate they get disappointed when they do not win but um the quota is strict and we have no choice but to abide by that but again i remind citizens that they can resubmit you can resubmit in the subsequent years and it's interesting because um once there are these these various categories very broad um what what another frequent question that comes to mind is uh i have like i have a candidate in mind um and perhaps the form doesn't allow me to really detail why i think this candidate is eligible our is the public allowed to include additional information about the particular candidate this this is a very good question and i'm glad you are raising it um there's supposed to be an element of surprise in the submission of the nomination so in other words the person nominating should not alert the individual being nominated that they have been nominated but of course they need to get information right to submit and um in the submission we do not expect to have just a CV of the individual um because the CV might be easy to get but at the same time we prefer you know give us some kind of of narrative on what the person has accomplished in so it's about getting interviews done asking around in the communities to find out what exactly the person has done um you so so public knowledge is very important community knowledge community engagement to to get the information to ensure that the individual doesn't know that it's so people like that element of surprise must be there and i was gonna ask what people like miss Compton and miss e-frame would be going out into the communities to conduct those interviews or how would that happen how would that gathering no we don't get involved as a committee we have a hands-off approach okay our role is to receive nominations review them make sure they ask they are within the criteria and make a determination as to who qualifies and who doesn't qualify that's our role we do not go in the community and suggest who should get a nomination now i want to make another point on on on on nominations some persons in the community after the investiture you have comments that so and so got an award so and so doesn't deserve what about so and so and so and so at the end of the day like i said the committee don't nominate anybody and if somebody who is more deserving not the public believes is more deserving did not submit a nomination there's no way we can determine well mr x in the community should have gotten it over mr y because we just don't get involved in that aspect of things so we are saying to the public if you know they are deserving persons who have rendered meritorious service and deserve a nomination and deserve honor please take the time and nominate them what happens for example if it has ever happened before when a particular candidate or nominate a nominee there it gets to a point where it's there's there's a conflict on the committee a certain amount a certain number of a member a certain number of the company would like to award a particular individual as opposed to you know the other side three out of four or three three on three is there how does that work if there is a a type maker is easy for him how does that work when that scenario happens yes if it happens thank you for that question we have actually experienced that already wow and we go back into the the application and we look at it again and see where in that application we can extract some things substantial from the individual to determine which person should get that award and we try our best to screen those applications with a fine to be fine very fine very fine and then we come back everybody come back and then we look at it we discuss it we debate on it and then we come to a conclusion okay so at no point in time yeah essentially if i may say that we we apply a democratic process yes in handling those kinds of situations so at the end of the day um you know we put put the nomination to a vote and you know the the the individual against the most votes end up winning winning and then try to be democratic and it's never been a case so it's not going to be a case where anyone outside of the committee may be required to no to okay no no no all right the role of the committee is to deal with the adjudication of the nominations exclusively and then generally the governor general what is his excellencies well let me just tell you the process of following the receipt of nominations and the adjudication um we submit our recommendations to the prime minister the prime minister then will engage the cabinet to approve our recommendations or their times when the prime minister and cabinet may decide okay um you know maybe there needs to be a little tweaking because at the end of the the prime minister does have the authority because all we are doing is recommending shortlisting shortly well recommending to him so very often we do not have significant changes sometimes you'll have one or two okay but um the prime minister has that right to determine that you know there could be some tweaking so the nominations go to the prime minister cabinet would review and we will get a response from the prime minister's office saying hey this is our position and then from the prime minister's office the submissions are made to the governor general where that is where calls are made to the winners um you know investiture ceremony is organized and of course you know we announcements are made on independence day in terms of who the winners are and usually a week or two after independence the then the investiture ceremony is um takes place where you know the winners are honored they receive the medals and you know they celebrate and blah blah blah yes well that's I mean and the ceremony is often a very uh a very proud occasion very very proud the the winners are usually present family members it's the ceremony the ceremony is something it's something to to admire and appreciate yes yes the best among us you know community leaders community members etc and now we do actually have some highlights from last year's ceremony and the years gone by so I mean we'd like to invite you to take your attention to your screen our screen here the public you can just you know don't change that channel and we invite you to reflect on last year's investiture last year was quite quite the event absolutely at government house um I mean maybe I'm too young to remember but has the ceremony ever been at any or held at any other location other than government house yes indeed um in recent years we hosted the ceremony at at royal time and at sunders but that was strictly because the government house was on the repairs and on the renovations but ideally um that is the home of the national awards investiture ceremony reason being the governor general is a chancellor of the order and I think the opulence of government house makes for a fantastic venue and the most apt venue for such a prestigious event there are some people whom the only time they ever visit government house is when they receive an honor and I think it is a privilege and we need to continue to host these events at government house okay logistically sometimes it's a little difficult because you know you have to you know yeah number changes okay accommodate numbers and so but I believe we believe as a committee that it's it's the ceremony should continue to be house yes I don't I don't know what your thoughts are no I I agree the venue is ideal I think it is it is quite apt for the occasion but um in the event that persons are not not everyone can attend it's also going to be live streamed yes and as it has been the case in years gone by that is correct okay good so I mean we've covered a lot in in the half hour or coming up to a half hour of course there will be more sensitization as the months progress up to the announcement day has it been determined what day the the awardees will be officially notified no we have not determined that but the the prime minister there's a date that we have proposed such that the prime minister can get the nominations or the recommendations to the governor general and that is sometime in January okay okay so we usually give adequate time so that the notifications can go out so people can prepare themselves for what is to come speaking of adequate time and given that the trend in volume of nominations maybe you may need some more time maybe we need to advance this media launch and open the the process a little sooner to accommodate more applications are we heading in that direction yeah well I will say to you that they are members of the community who don't even wait until we launch to submit nominations um we have been receiving nominations throughout the year because some people know it's coming will they carry over into the official day I'm talking about for this season yes yes yes once investiture ends and the new season starts or even before it starts people submit nominations and that is fine we just put them on a file when we're ready to attend if we put all all all during in the park yes so so so that is how we how it is done now you know maybe other than the awardees the what we have some pictures you know maybe the average person there isn't a way of what it looks like the actual medals the medals the various categories so on your screens now in a few few seconds we can get an idea as to what they look like they will be pretty much what will be handed to the the awardees next year when when the ceremony is held and whilst that's being played on the screen there there they are by next in the next in the coming weeks what sort of work will this committee be engaged in next coming weeks what can we expect this e3 well we actually will be going out we have a list of media houses that we will be going out to to be able to inform the general public as to what is expected how they can go about submitting their nominations etc so we will be really busy throughout the coming weeks and yeah and i mean finally as we we wrap up it's clear and we will continue reminding the public where they can access these forms the internet post offices libraries etc constituency councils any phone numbers any any other forms of communication for queries miss thompson or thomas pardon me uh any any office numbers but if they are actually actually um yes the persons who need additional clarity can call the office of the prime minister and ask for the secretary of the national awards committee mrs imam lui and she will be able to provide additional information final question um why should the average solution what do i care about nominating their brother their sister family or community community member for this this particular award it's the right thing to do it's the right thing to do i think um it's both motivation you know it promotes um you know provides role model to other persons in the community to go out and do the same um it gives the nation an opportunity to say thanks to show appreciation and to celebrate persons who are selfless um we spoke about unsung heroes we have lots of them in our communities around the island and i believe we cannot boast about nation building if we do not honor the persons who actually go over and above the call of duty to excel and to serve and to provide the meritorious service in our various communities and um like i said when we talk about communities we're talking about not just sent lucha but our solutions in the diaspora that are doing tremendously good work out there so if i may i think we're coming down to the end yes yes um i want to take this opportunity to thank all those citizens over the years who have taken the time to submit nominations i am thanking those who have already sent nominations for this season and thanking in advance those who are going to be sending us during the course of the next few months i also would like to thank my committee tremendously we have an illustrious group and we work very very well together so i'd like to thank them for their hard work and to tell them how proud i am of the great work they've been doing um for the for the committee and for the nation at large i'd like to thank you as well opportunity on behalf of all three of us for the opportunity to this was fun this was very informative thank you all for for for making yourselves available to to continue to elucidate the public inform the public on this very very positive and nation building endeavor in my humble opinion so in lucha thank you for joining us this morning uh the media launch for the national awards comes to a close however the nomination process is open it extends or goes up until possibly the 9th of december the committee will of course uh provide updates between that time again thank you for tuning into the ntn channel and we look forward the committee looks forward to venting your nomination forms good morning to you and in hand let's celebrate our country the best we have to give we feel so proud to be st lusion in paradise we live and we all have to work together to serve the land we love wherever you may roam in this world this home you think