A people who do not generally understand where they came from and the sacrifices made to get to where they are today will make assumptions that are false.

This was the key message conveyed by Minister of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, Ronald Jones, last weekend, as he addressed the 23rd annual awards ceremony of the Golden Travellers, a group of female singers from the Ebenezer Pentecostal churches in Barbados.

The Minister told the gathering at the Elsie Payne Complex: ???Even though we condemned some of the harshness of that period, it was a time where character was being built and fostered because the importance of family was embedded within each individual; at the core, the need to survive together. That is what it did. That is what made so many persons of that era or vintage so strong.???

Emphasising that the sacrifices, particularly by females were well known, he commended the Golden Travellers, saying women held the nation up in more ways than one and ???the way our women go, our nation goes???.

The Minister noted he too had been surrounded in his early life by strong, focused and determined women who always had to do more than men in the society.

Their tasks, he pointed out, included child rearing, readying them for school as well as Sunday school. Praising the involvement of youth within the group, he urged that more emphasis be placed, by society, on getting children out to church, especially Sunday School.

While he pointed out that ???people made the country??? and this was not vice versa, he said there was selfishness in existence which made the role of the Golden Travellers all the more important.

???People don???t share like they used to; that is why you are important. They are several of us in the world who still share; who still, from meagre resources, reach out [just] because there is somebody who doesn???t even have meagre resources,??? he remarked.

The ceremony saw 11 members of the group, including its President Eileen Alleyne, receiving awards for their contribution to society and the group itself. The Golden Travellers??? philanthropic deeds have included contributing to the Elaine Scantlebury Centre in St. Andrew, and fundraising for those either in need of surgery or surviving the loss of homes to fires.

joy-ann.gill@barbados.gov.bb

Pin It on Pinterest