PHILIPSBURG--The Daily Herald's Managing Director Mary Jane Snow-Hellmund is one of two women in St. Maarten among thirteen nominees for the Dutch Caribbean's Outstanding Woman Award 2012. The other St. Maarten nominee is St. Maarten Museum Director Elsje Bosch.
The other nominees are from Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao.
The award is sponsored by BISInc., a Curaçao-based organisation that explained in a press release last night that this year, for the seventh consecutive time, a great woman in the Caribbean area would receive recognition for being an outstanding woman during her career.
It said the recognition had been awarded first in 2006 as part of the annual Women Conference "About Women and ..." organised by BISInc. and this year's 13 nominees represent a compilation of all the women nominated during past years who have not yet had the chance to win the Outstanding Woman Award, as "each one, without exception, earned their merits for the job well done in their communities."
BISInc. also explained, "The criteria to be nominated are that the nominee must be a professional woman from the Caribbean, 60 years and older, and that she made a valuable contribution to other women in any area of the Caribbean during her career."
This year's Award Ceremony will be held on March 2, the first night of the "About Women and Influence" conference, and the winner will be the result of the final decision of the international team of judges comprising experts in Brussels, Washington and Bonaire.
This year nominees are Maria Diwan, Helen Hoyer, Mafalda Miguel, Isidra Brigitha, Marbella Pichardo, Gladys do Rego-Kuster, Dr. Rose Mary Allen, Norma Wild and Haidita Freitas Franca of Curaçao; Elsje Bosch and Mary Jane Snow-Hellmund of St. Maarten; Laura Simona Wernet-Paskel of Aruba; and Maria Carmen Hellmund-Boom of Bonaire.
The official award is a high-heeled shoe – "a unique piece of art made by artist Gala Martinus confirming how high this woman stood during her career," BISInc. explained.
This year's winner will be mentioned in all future publications of the Annual Women Conference in Curaçao and Outstanding Woman Award publications that will be registered on either whoiswho.an or whowaswho.an
The recognised women up to now were Jenny Fraai, initiator of the literacy project Pro Alfa, in 2011; retired midwife Thelma Brunings in 2010; Lucina da Costa Gomes Matheeuw in 2009 who, when she was the Minister in the Netherlands Antilles, signed a law making it possible for married women to sign official papers without the permission of their husbands; Mila Palm in 2008 who, as a teacher and coach, motivates young women and teenage mothers to continue with their education; now deceased Zelma "Chèma" Maduro in 2007, who worked 52 years as a kindergarten teacher and made a valuable contribution to the development of young girls; and Nilda Juliana-Jansen in 2006, founder of the cleaning service company "Servisio na Bo Òrdu who created job opportunities for women, giving them the chance to take care of themselves and their children.
