Minister of Youth, Sports and Community Empowerment, the Hon. Charles Griffith presenting the Phoenix Award to Ranako Bailey.

Minister of Youth, Sports and Community Empowerment, the Hon. Charles Griffith, wants to see the number of nominations for the National Youth Awards doubled next year.

He made the comments at the Awards on Sunday, May 26th, whilst declaring he was ‘very impressed’ with the hosting of this year’s awards, noting that the event is a vehicle to propel young people forward in Barbados.

This year there were 119 nominations for the 12 national youth awards and almost 30 nominations for special awards.

On a glittering night for the youth at the Frank Collymore Hall, a packed audience saw Ranako Bailey copping the Phoenix award – the Minister’s award – for his work.

The other youth awardees were Tyrique Wilson won the Bambusa Award, Michron Robinson copped the Banyan award, Jianna Fagon won the Calabash Award, Keriah Scantlebury who secured the Canewood Award, Ayanna Morgan won the Conrad Hunte award, Unborn Justice won the Ficus Award, the Barbados National Student Council won the Hope Award, Talibah Davis copped the Kerry-Ann Ifill award, Kaya Hinds secured the Sandbox Award and Travis Gardiner captured the Silk Cotton award.

13 special awards were also presented to young people across Barbados. These were won by Alicia Corbin, Kerrisha Skeete, Adonte Thompson, Emmanual Johnson, Heidi Stoute, Krystal Hoyte, Christina Sargeant, Christian Whitehall, Shakayla Riley, Danico Watson, Tyrel Belgrave, Tremaine Trotman and Jafari Toppin.

At the ceremony, Destiny Cummins and Ammario Rollock were also presented with the Outstanding Parish Ambassador Titles.

The featured address was delivered by motivational speaker, Kristen Greaves who urged the young people to ‘dream bigger, get better every day and to seek to go further than they ever though possible in their lives’. He said these three attributes separate the excellent people from the good individuals in the real world.

The evening was packed by several musical ,dance and spoken word presentations by Cyndi Celeste, Vox Novum Youth Ensemble, Kristen ‘Krisirie’ Walker, Angel Stringz, Shontae ‘Tae’ Alleyne-Clarke and Of Another Nature Dance Company. The event was co-hosted by Paula Ann Jackman, and youth emcees, Diara Springer and Michael Eliott.