Eighteen years ago, The Ghanaian News launched a modest effort to recognize, showcase and celebrate the achievements of members in our communities across Canada who have and continue to excel in various discipline and fields of endeavor. This initiative was borne out of the conviction that many members of our community in Canada have been making strenuous efforts not only to achieve laurels for themselves and their community, but to the development and improvement of Canadian society as well.
To a very large extent, this innovation has been a great and a splashing success. Over the past seventeen years we have unearthed and showcased an average of twenty-five high-flying achievers in various fields of endeavor from our community every year. That comes close to nearly three hundred and eighty persons to date. This year we will be showcasing close to thirty more achievers. These Achievement Awards have proven a number of important points: First, there are great talents in our community. Secondly, our community members are not just sitting on these talents; they are utilizing them to achieve results. Thirdly they have proven that our community members are contributing significant efforts to the improvement of Canadian society. Against the background of all the misinformation, myths and stereotypes that are bandied around about immigrants and immigrant communities, we are delighted to note that this events have achieved the purpose for which they were instituted: showcasing the best and brightest from our community in the larger Canadian context.
We wish to however to comment on a disturbing aspect of these events in our community: the low involvement and participation of our community members in these awards ceremonies. We have observed over the years that it is the same people who regularly attend these events although the awards recipients may be different every year. We also wish to note the constant presence of a large number of mainstream Canadians: from politicians, public servants to Police Officers at these events. If these high-profile people from mainstream Canadian society recognize the importance of this event and regularly show up to support us, then it is incumbent on us as the community organizing this event to embrace it and turn out in our numbers to support it.
We also depend on community members to nominate the known achievers in our community who are deserving of these awards. We therefore entreat community members to constantly be on the lookout for those that are achieving laurels in various aspects in our community and nominate them for the awards when the time comes.
We call on community members to turn up to support and applaud our achievers for this year on Sunday November 25, 2018. They deserve our recognition, our praises and our support.
Finally we extend our heartfelt and warm congratulations to all our award recipients for this year. Do not rest on your oars. Keep pushing to make yourself, your community and our nation proud. We are proud of you!