This Week we celebrated Men’s Week under the theme “Committed to Change: Men in Enterprising Endeavours”. In recent years, as part of an initiative led by the Gender Affairs Unit in the Ministry of Social Development, we have celebrated Women’s Week and Men’s Week to coincide with Mother’s Day and Father’s Day respectively. Women and men are identified annually and their contributions to society or a sector of society highlighted. The criteria for selection are not known but many persons are readily able to discern why some of the individuals are being highlighted – and readily support their selection.
Women’s Week and Men’s Week are initiatives to be applauded. In the case of Men’s Week this is particularly so at this time when many persons feel that men are losing their way and not playing meaningful roles in the development of families and communities. Thankfully, while this can be said of some men there are many men who have not been recognised, and may never be recognised during Men’s Week activities, who are very deserving of recognition for their sustained contributions towards the development and improvement of family and community life.
We often spend time looking for and recognising the extraordinary, when it is the ordinary but meaningful and consistent acts that actually ensure sustainable and positive family and community life. The men who are dedicated to the simple but necessary task of ensuring that their children get to and from school in a timely manner, equipped with the required resources, are often taken for granted but this task takes planning, discipline and sacrifice and is often motivated not by a mere sense of duty but by love for that child and a desire to play a meaningful role in the child’s development. This father is worthy of commendation. The father who is at every extracurricular activity from practice to production may never have his picture displayed under a Men’s Week caption, but he nevertheless brings significant value to family life and, by extension, community life.
Many of our men serve as father figures to the various athletes they coach. Whether it is at the individual schools, the Coronation Ball Park, the Sandy Ground Ball Field, the James Ronald Webster Park, the Annex of the football field at Raymond E. Guishard Technical Centre, many men show up weekly to take youngsters through their paces in various sporting endeavours. These men are diligent and demonstrate great discipline in their regular attendance and patience with our youth, even when they do not demonstrate the desired or expected level of discipline. The many men who give their time and expertise and offer guidance to youth through their involvement in youth orgamisations cannot go unmentioned. These occasions for interacting with Anguilla’s young people must be cherished as they serve as occasions for many young people to receive the guidance and attention they deserve but may not receive elsewhere.
We pay tribute to the single fathers. Yes, we have those among us. These men provide their children with stable homes and provide for their financial, social and emotional wellbeing. Many of them carry out the role that is best shared by two parents without feeling aggrieved or embittered or without any sense of self-righteousness. The feelings these young persons have for these fathers are aptly captured in the calypso ‘Single Parent Legacy’ sung by young Shaelen Hodge, the Mighty Linger.
The Mighty Linger, in his calypso tribute to his “Daddy”, describes himself as happy and blessed and recognises that his daddy’s legacy is all about his success. He recognises that when it comes to his needs his daddy tries his best and that he’s his daddy’s treasure chest. In short, he recognises that his father will defy all odds to ensure that he does not suffer the usual ills persons generally associate with single parenthood. The Mighty Linger is blessed to have a father who cares, and there are many other children who can say the very same thing. These fathers and many other men are the unsung heroes who, on a daily basis, give unstintingly of themselves to make sure that Anguilla’s boys and girls are well equipped to experience all that the world has to offer and to overcome its many challenges successfully. While public acclaim may not be heaped upon these fathers and the many other men who support and mentor our youth, their contributions do not go unnoticed. Their contributions are valued by their children, by the many young people who they did not father but who rely on them for guidance and support, and by the Anguillian community in general.
The Anguillian newspaper salutes the honourees for this year’s Men’s Week, as well as those many unsung heroes whose invaluable contributions may never be published but which do not go unnoticed.
