Nominations being sought to fit theme: “Aal bady waan bady”

Guyana Cultural Association of New York will be celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2011 under the theme ‘Aal bady waan bady’. In recognition of this milestone, the association will be hosting its annual awards ceremony to acknowledge Guyana’s cosmopolitan heritage and the emergence of a common culture. This even is slated for August 31 in Brooklyn, New York.

The association is inviting suitable applicants to submit their nominations for awards between now and May 14. Nominations can be submitted for a person or an entity whose work fits within the theme ‘Aal bady waan bady’.

The awards will be distributed in four categories: Guyana Cultural Association Award; Guyana Cultural Association Award – youth; Guyana Cultural Association – Exemplary Award; and Guyana Cultural Association – Lifetime Achievement Award.

Youth nominations must detail the academic and extracurricular accomplishments that position the nominee above the average in his or her area of scholastic and cultural activities.

The awardees are selected based on how much their work has improved their community; or enhanced Guyanese society in general; the impact their contributions have had on creative presentations associated with Guyanese; confirmation that their efforts meet a distinction considered an exemplary model that can inspire others; how their creativity embodies positive cultural attributes that Guyanese admire, or honour, or preserve; and the contribution by the awardee that represents characteristics at a high level of skill. The range of activity can cover a wide array of positive deeds.

Awards are not limited to any one region in the world, nor do they come solely from the arts. Over the course of the past nine years, the Guyana Cultural Association Awards honourees have hailed from Guyana, the Caribbean, United States, Canada, and Europe.

In the past, Guyanese nationals received the Lifetime Achievement Award; individuals were acknowledged with the Exemplary Award, and organisations and commercial entities were accorded the Guyana Cultural Association Award. Youth awardees are either born in Guyana, or have at least one parent who is Guyanese or is of Guyanese descent.

Since 2001, the Guyana Cultural Association of New York has been the leader in recognising those who have inspired us. The award ceremony will acclaim creators and enablers of various features of our culture, where all of us are one people – “Aal bady, waan bady”.

Contemporary Guyana was built by people who defined a common culture from a wide range of forbearers and circumstances. The indigenous people today, called Amerindians, were enslaved by European colonists starting in the 1600s.

The Dutch, French and English, in succession, established plantations in a colonial period that lasted hundreds of years. The savagery of slavery was extended to Africans who made transatlantic journeys mainly from the coast of West Africa.

200 years later, the colonial plantation masters replaced the African slaves with indentured labourers. The first group was taken from Portugal. Over a period of nearly eight decades, ships continued to bring the indentured, with the arrival of Chinese and mostly Indians from the Asian continent. Barbadians and other West Indians were also among the indentured labour class that was transported to the Guyana coastland. They have all forged the Guyanese culture.