The 2020 Inaugural Hard Head Award

CAISO: Sex and Gender Justice is thrilled to announce Nadella Oya as the winner of the Inaugural Colin Robinson Hard Head Award, on 21 November 2021 at a virtual Award Ceremony that was held via Zoom and streamed on Facebook Live. Ms. Oya is the founder and director of Createfuture good, an organisation that serves children and adolescents across the Caribbean. The award included celebration of the winner's work, media coverage, a citation and TTD 15,000.

Singled out for Honorable Mentions were Francis Escayg, for his work on disability advocacy and rights with  Cause and Effect; and Stephanie Leitch, for her feminist advocacy and leadership with WOMANTRA.

Nominations and Areas of Work Celebrated

A total of 12 nominations was received, celebrating activism and advocacy in the following areas: Anti-violence Education Using Martial Arts; Building Individual and Organizational Transformational and Conscious Leadership; Creative Interventions for Children’s Rights; Culture and the Creative Arts/Industries; Disability Advocacy and Rights; Feminist Advocacy against Gender-Based Violence; Gender Equality and Gender Justice; Mental Health Advocacy; LGBTQI Rights and Advocacy; Women’s Rights; and Youth Development and Empowerment.

Selection and Judging 

CAISO’s Hard Head Award Committee short-listed the nominations and invited five (5) finalists to submit additional information about their work to an external Panel of Judges for adjudication.  The Panel comprised graduate student and gender and LGBTI advocate, Richie Daly; performer, theatre practitioner and song writer, Wendell Manwarren; and Barbadian actress, drama educator and development consultant, Varia Williams.

In their Citation, the judges acknowledged the dynamic, exemplary activism of all five finalists, and singled out Escayg, Leitch and Oya as most outstanding. Escayg uses creative design entrepreneurship to advocate for the rights of disabled persons. Leitch combines art installation, film and traditional mas portrayals to advocate on feminist issues. 

In the end, they agreed that Nadella Oya was the best representative of this inaugural award because of the scope and creativity of her advocacy and work for social transformation. Oya’s work with Createfuturegood primarily focuses on children's rights but also covers intersecting issues such as mental health, education, crime and violence against women and girls, to name a few. By foregrounding creative mediums, Createfuturegood projects have had over 300,000 viewers, sparking conversations about these and other issues. 

CAISO is especially grateful to the individual donors, Republic Bank Limited and the UWI Rights Advocacy Project (U-RAP), whose financial support has ensured funding for the first two years of this initiative that honours CAISO's founder, Colin Robinson’s praxis in speaking out insistently against injustice while demanding change and transformation.

CAISO salutes the winner, finalists and nominees of the Inaugural Colin Robinson Hard Head Award and looks forward to launching the 2021 Call for Nominations!