promoting gender equality and empowering women. She has worked extensively with the youths of St. Vincent and the Grenadines as a Family Life Educator with the Planned Parenthood Association while travelling all around the island to educate them through sessions on self-esteem and life skills. For the adults, her sessions involved family planning, contraception and reproduction. She still found time to raise 4 children of her own while volunteering to work with the inmates of Her Majesty’s prisons both male and female in St. Vincent through counseling and conducting sessions ranging from self-esteem and personal hygiene to income generation.

In regards to combating HIV/AIDS, Ms. Charles has crossed continents to live and work in The Gambia, West Africa for 11 years as a United Nations Volunteer with the National Youth Service Scheme. She assisted in the development of the National Youth Policy, designing training courses for young people while working on the National AIDS Control Program, The National AIDS Secretariat and the Medical Research Council.

Throughout her stint in Africa, Ms. Charles coordinated and implemented programs related to capacity building, counseling, income generation, and reproductive health for People living with HIV/AIDS, Commercial Sex Workers, Public Sector employees and NGOs. She was involved in administering ante-natal and post-natal care to HIV positive women with emphasis on obtaining the ARV treatments and soliciting supplement feed for the infants. Furthermore, she organized and participated in the World AIDS Day activities and the yearly international candle light memorial. She along with two of her children fostered several HIV positive children who were without a home in The Gambia. More importantly through her interactions she became an inspiration to a number of Gambian men and women and made a difference in their lives. Up to present day, they are still in constant contact with her even after she returned to St. Vincent and the Grenadines in 2006.

Ms. Charles is presently employed in her home country at the office of the National AIDS secretariat where every day she continues to touch the life of Vincentians around her who battle against HIV/AIDS. She still participates in radio and television programs on family life issues and contributes daily to treatment and prevention of this epidemic. She is a dedicated team player who is known for consistently going above and beyond her duties. Many Vincentians consider her a role model and friend. I hope this nomination makes her aware of our admiration and appreciation of her unsung work over all these years.

Submitted by Reanna C. Solomon, St. Vincent & the Grenadines