Two Trinis named winners in the last Queen's Young Leaders Award

Trinidadians have once again found themselves in winner's row for the Queen's Young Leaders Award.
Two men, Benedict Bryan and Jean-Claude Cournand, are among the regional winners in what will be the last Queen's Young Leaders Award.
Cournand is the founder of the Two Cents Movement. The team includes 12 young people and 10 poets and has led workshops and performances at more than 70 secondary schools and 30 primary schools.
According to a bio on the Queen's Young Leaders site, in 2017, the team’s focus was on gender-based violence, so Cournand partnered with the University of the West Indies Institute for Gender and Development Studies to train poets on the issues before they took their messages into schools.
The group has also hosted two annual national spoken-word events in which 25 secondary and 17 primary schools participated. Each year more than 40,000 young people in Trinidad and Tobago engage with the programme.
Bryan is the founder of the Humanitarian Association of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago (HARTT), which focuses on providing humanitarian assistance to refugees. Its programmes have included an initiative which taught refugees English and extra-curricular activities to help them integrate into their new culture.
He also sits on the committee for the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in Trinidad and Tobago. Currently, he is working alongside other young people throughout the Caribbean to launch a Youth Peace and Security Think Tank, the aim of which is to promote peace and security for all, especially for those from minority backgrounds.
Past winners of the Award were Teocah Dove, Siddel Ramkissoon and Matthew Batson.
Source:  The Loop, Dec. 6, 2017

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